Don't mess with Mom

Very cool story from the Omaha World-Herald:

Working mom takes down meth ring
Her husband was in prison, waiting out a 15-year sentence that he earned by selling methamphetamine out of his mechanic shop. Her kids were at home, missing their father.

So she called the Omaha Police Department, and because she was a woman and spoke only Spanish, she talked to Detective Edith Andersen, the only woman and Spanish speaker in the narcotics unit.

The caller wanted to become a police informant in hopes of shaving time off her husband's prison term. She'd turn in drug dealers, and her children could see their father again sooner. Andersen and the caller agreed: The woman would volunteer her help to detectives.

It turned out to be no ordinary partnership.

The mother of six gained the trust of dangerous people who were part of a drug ring active in Arizona, Texas, California, Nebraska and Iowa. Authorities link the ring to four still officially unsolved Omaha homicides.

By the time the informant's involvement ended, police had seized 13 pounds of methamphetamine worth an estimated $500,000 � enough to feed the daily habits of 17,600 or more users. Federal prosecutors convicted 11 people on drug and gun charges, getting them prison sentences ranging from five to 27 years.

�She single-handedly took these people down,� Andersen said.

The seven-month undercover undertaking was dubbed Operation Red Ice. This story, based on documents and court hearings held in U.S. and Douglas County district courts, as well as interviews with police, provides a rare window into how a violent, sizable meth ring operated in Omaha � and was broken up by a working mother.

Took the better part of a year but she was able to pick up where her husband left off and infiltrate herself into the gang. Talk about nerves of steel and devotion to her husband and family...