CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — The Operation Lone Star Task Force was in Bee County on Wednesday helping the sheriff's department with it's patrols in an effort to root out and stop cartel smuggling. Police departments from cities like Falfurrias, Kingsville and Edna sent officers here as part of nearly 30 law enforcement officers spread out across the county.
"Usually we are just call takers and we’re not able to do as many traffic stops as we would like," Bee County Sheriff’s Deputy Jennifer Herbst said. "It’s nice to have all these agencies come and assist us."
Bee County Sheriff Alden Southmayd believes the task force is needed because his county has several highways that smugglers love to travel down.
"Every time you turn around you see where cartels have setup in our larger cities different operations," Southmayd said. "Thankfully, I don’t believe we have any of that here in Beeville, we’re a little bit too small for that, but they’re coming through."
The Operation Lone Star Task Force is largely made up of a group of sheriffs who come from border counties like Kinney and others like Jackson. Highway 59 cuts through the middle of as smugglers make their way to Houston. With so many state troopers on the border, this task force is stepping up to fill in the gaps left behind.
"DPS is tasked at the border dealing with the issues there that are coming up so there needs to be another layer of defense and that next layer of defense is local law enforcement," Goliad County Sheriff Roy Boyd said.
Refugio County Sheriff Pinky Gonzales says many small counties can't handle the cartels on their own.
"We do a lot of damage, we do a lot of damage joining forces," Gonzales said. "There’s a lot of counties that don’t have but two deputies working."
The task force is working so well that it’s rapidly expanding around the state.
"We have Operation Lone Star Task Force- South, Operation Lone Star Task Force- West, we just started our Central Texas Operation Lone Star Task Force then we’re building on it with our Greater Houston Operation Lone Star Task Force and then we will be starting our North Texas Task Force," Goliad County Sheriff Roy Boyd said.
Boyd leads this task force which is moving from one county to another trying to stay one step ahead of the cartels.