For a total of five years, state and local law enforcement officials combined their resources and efforts to target surveillance of a group of men that they suspected were involved in gang activity ranging from drug trafficking to other serious crimes. The group allegedly went by the name Texas Syndicate.

Reports say that the investigation was one of the largest federal RICO-based cases in San Antonio in recent history. The formal name of the federal legislation is the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act and provides a legal basis for law enforcement to charge individuals for involvement in ongoing criminal organizations and provides extended criminal penalties.

"There's a lot of planning involved, a lot of intelligence involved," said a lieutenant with the Bexar County Sheriff's Office, one of the state agencies involved in the investigation. During an investigation, law enforcement officials not only combine their resources to target individuals but to build a case against them.

The long investigation came to a head this week when four men were arrested in or around the San Antonio area. The first man was arrested in Bexar County by a SWAT team on Wednesday morning, Feb. 15, 2012. He is a 32-year-old man police say dealt cocaine in the area. When officials searched the man they found 12 ounces of a substance believed to be cocaine and $5,000.

The other three suspects targeted on Wednesday were a 57-year-old man, a 27-year-old man and a 26-year-old man who had already been taken into custody by federal officials. The arrests on Wednesday were all made under the federal RICO statutes.

Source: KSAT.com, "4 Texas Syndicate members arrested," Matt Rivers, Feb. 15, 2012