PHOENIX – Last month, Attorney General Kris Mayes and agents and prosecutors at the Arizona Attorney General’s Office (AGO) were honored by the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) for their part in the High Intensity Drug Task Force Area (HIDTA) investigation, ‘Operation Double Down,’ at the 2025 National HIDTA Awards ceremony.
“The work my office does as part of HIDTA is key to stopping the Mexican drug cartels and halting the flow of fentanyl through Arizona communities,” said Attorney General Mayes. “I am grateful to our federal and local law enforcement partners. We will continue to work together to aggressively investigate and prosecute these transitional criminals.”
The Arizona HIDTA team was honored for the best overall ‘Investigation’ for their work on ‘Operation Double Down.’ Operation Double Down was a seven-month, multi-agency investigation designed to gather intelligence to identify and interdict individuals transporting illegal drugs throughout Arizona.
The Phoenix Police Department (PPD) Drug Enforcement Bureau’s (DEB) Conspiracy Squad and the DEA Phoenix Field Division’s Financial Investigations Group (FIG) conducted a long-term, complex investigation that targeted a transnational criminal organization responsible for the trafficking and distribution of bulk quantities of illicit drugs, as well as for money laundering, in Arizona. The cases were later handed off to prosecutors at the AGO who worked closely with PPD and the DEB investigators to hold those individuals identified accountable for their involvement. After the operation, Assistant Attorney General Veronica Skinner and other prosecutors at the AGO were able to secure arrests warrants for 25 individuals identified in the investigation.
The Attorney General's Office has been working hand-in-hand with local, state, and federal agencies in attacking the flow of illegal substances entering the state and later distributed throughout the country. This operation has set a new standard in what can be achieved when law enforcement agencies, and the prosecutors who handle these cases, combine resources and partner to accomplish the goal of serving the community.
The Attorney General's Office would like to extend thanks to those partnerships that made the collective results of Operation Double Down, including PPD, DEB, DEA and the entire Arizona HIDTA network.