TUCSON – Nearly a dozen alleged drug dealers are behind bars, some of them employees of United Parcel Service or UPS.

This follows a two-year investigation by Homeland Security Investigations and Tucson Police officers assigned to the Counter Narcotics Alliance.

According to investigators, drug traffickers were using UPS employees to smuggle drugs to other parts of the country and were also smuggling cash back to Tucson.

“I’ve been a police officer 37 years in the City of Tucson,” said Tucson Police Department Cpt. John Leavitt assigned to the CNA. “And this in my view is the most significant narcotics case we worked in that period of time and the reason is because it affects many drug trafficking organizations and the path they used to bring drugs.”

Tucson Police sent mug shots of nine of the 11 people who were arrested by HSI and CAN.

Four of those worked for UPS. Two of them were supervisors, Mario Barceló and Gary Love. Thomas Mendoza and Michael Castro were drivers.

Senior Manager of Public Relations for UPS, Matthew O’Connor, told News 4 the following:

“UPS is aware of the law enforcement actions involving employees. We cooperate fully with law enforcement professionals and will continue to provide information as needed. We are not at liberty to discuss the details of the arrests as this is an ongoing investigation. Any further public information will be made available by law enforcement personnel.”

Investigators said the drugs that were being shipped were mostly cocaine and marijuana.

“If you take off infrastructure like a shipping route or like a shipping method like we have in this particular case,” Leavitt added. “It affects a lot of drug trafficking organizations. There’s no question this puts a dent in drug trafficking in the United States.”

UPS has been working closely with law enforcement.

“There’s no question across the country this vulnerability is likely being exploited by other individuals that have discovered how to do this,” said Leavitt. “So working with UPS, we will be able to close it down and make it much less desirable for people trafficking in narcotics.”

Leavitt said TPD has actually been investigating these types of cases for the last 10 years and have been making arrests.

However, for this case, they will be seizing millions of dollars’ worth of cash and property.