Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard 2010 Annual Report

Criminal Division (continued)
in cash, three properties, three
filing of felony charges and
State v. Sonoqui
Examples of some of the drugs, grenades, and guns seized by the AGO Task Force on
various cases during the 2010 fiscal year as part of our border security efforts.
ers in India and resold them to
consumers across the country.
Runke was found guilty on 12
criminal counts by a Yavapai
County jury and was sentenced
to four years in prison.
State v. Iknadosian
The section served a seizure
warrant in December 2009
based on information linking
Phoenix gun store owner
George Iknadosian to a drugsmuggling
syndicate operating
in Arizona in December, 2009.
The defendant is accused of
selling firearms to straw buyers
for eventual export to Mexico.
The civil forfeiture case against
the defendant involves $50,800
vehicles and approximately 200
weapons.
Commercial Interdiction Cases
The Attorney General’s Office
partnered with the Phoenix
Police Department to handle
three commercial interdiction
cases. The section filed an order
of forfeiture for two seizures
of cash from couriers at Sky
Harbor International Airport
– one for $110,040 and the
other for $20,000. In the third
case, $124,800 in cash was
seized that had been sent from
Boston to Phoenix by truck in a
shipping crate. The money was
seized in a false bottom of the
shipping crate that contained a
dishwasher.
State v. Yeh
In July of 2009, the section
and the U.S. Drug Enforcement
Administration announced the
the Maricopa County Superior
Court’s issuance of a $10 million
seizure warrant against a
Nevada doctor accused of writing
illegal drug prescriptions for
patients at a clinic he operated
in Golden Valley, near Kingman
in Mohave County. The doctor
allegedly collected $3.5 million
in fraudulent insurance claims,
including $2.5 million from
the State of Arizona. The 14
felony counts against Dr. Albert
Szu Sun Yeh, 44, of Las Vegas,
included conspiracy, assisting
a criminal syndicate, money
laundering and administering
narcotic drugs. Funds totaling
$1.7 million were seized;
fraudulent payments were estimated
at more than $3 million
and an additional $7 million in
treble damages is being sought.
Settlement negotiations are in
progress.
The section filed a notice of
pending forfeiture regarding the
seizure of $516,000 in cash
and 19 vehicles in this case
which came out of “Operation
Tumbleweed,” a year-long investigation
that led to the indictment
of 59 defendants and the
breakup of the Garibaldi-Lopez
drug trafficking organization.
The binational organization was
believed to have smuggled up to
400,000 pounds of marijuana
annually from Mexico into the
United States across the Tohono
O’Odham Indian Reservation
since 2003. The operation was
one of the largest takedowns of
a drug-smuggling organization
in Arizona history.
State v. Angulo
This case came to the attention
of the Phoenix Police Department
after a homicide outside
of a restaurant and bar owned
Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard • 2010 Annual Report
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