FBI serves more than a dozen warrants in multiple Albuquerque raids

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — It was a busy Thursday morning for more than a dozen law enforcement agencies, with scenes in multiple southwest Albuquerque neighborhoods.

Officials with the Albuquerque branch of the FBI said they executed 16 federal search warrants before the sun came up, but they would not say what they were searching for.

“I can’t get into a whole lot of the details as to what it is that we’re looking at right behind me,” Special Agent in Charge Raul Bujanda said.
               
KOB 4 did get footage of a box marked “DEA evidence.”

“This is part of an ongoing operation investigation that we’ve been working jointly with every single agency you can imagine here in our local area,” Bujanda said.

The team effort included 15 local and state partners, as well as the FBI divisions in Denver and El Paso.

“We don’t do anything in isolation here in New Mexico,” Bujanda said. “We work everything in cooperation with our partners, and this was no different than any of those operations.”

Bujanda added there is no ongoing threat to the public, following Thursday morning’s investigations. He also said that is a relief, considering one of the raided homes was only a stone’s throw away from an elementary school.
               
“We just can’t have that,” he said. “We’ve got to make sure that we’re doing our part to keep our streets safe, community safe, and the children that are just waiting to go to school, keep them safe from all these harmful substances that we find in these locations.”

Bujanda went on to say, “We want to make sure that our streets are safe from violence offenders, from the substances that have plagued our societies, but things that cause us kind of and keep us awake at night.”

KOB 4 received a tip into the newsroom that tactical teams also hit some MDC restricted housing units Thursday morning. The FBI said it cannot make any confirmations or comments on the federal search warrants while they are sealed. They could be unsealed as soon as Friday.