A federal jury on Tuesday found a former peace officer and investigator for the Waller County District Attorney’s Office guilty of trafficking drugs.
Mohammed “Alex” Ahmed Kassem of Houston was caught transporting sham heroin and cartel drug money between Louisiana, Houston, and San Antonio using his marked police vehicle, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Texas. After a four-day trial, he was found guilty of two federal drug charges on February 27 — one count of attempted possession with intent to distribute heroin and another of money laundering.
“When Alex Kassem wore his Waller County peace officer credentials and Waller County-issued firearm while transporting what he thought were drugs in his Waller County-issued vehicle and then accepted what he thought was cartel drug money, he breached the most sacred of trusts — the trust a community places in its law enforcement,” said U.S. Attorney Alamdar Hamdani, per the news release.
“Today’s conviction brings Kassem one step closer to exchanging his peace officer attire for prison-issued garb and to restoring a trust once lost,” he added.
Speaking for himself during his trial, Kassem claimed to have trafficked the drugs and money upon the “implicit approval from the Waller County DA.” However, his bank records showed that a total of $31,000 in cash had been deposited into his account as a result of the illicit activity.
Regardless, Kassem’s lawyer, Warren Diepraam, said he was looking to exonerate his client on all charges or else he will file an appeal, he told The Texas Tribune in a statement. Kassem was indicted on four charges, but the jury found him not guilty of two. These included a gun charge — the possession of a firearm while committing a drug trafficking crime — and another money laundering charge.
Kassem will be sentenced on June 13, with the heroin charge alone punishable by a life sentence, while money laundering comes with a maximum penalty of 20 years.
In response to the highway corridors of North Texas becoming major pathways for drugs trafficked from the southern border into the United States, the sheriff’s departments in Collin, Tarrant, Wise, Smith, Hunt, Parker, Rockwall, and Grayson counties have joined forces in the North Texas Criminal Interdiction Unit (NTCIU). As recently reported by The Dallas Express, NTCIU recently reported large seizures of drugs, weapons, and more since its creation in 2018.
A history-making bust of methamphetamine was recently made at Eagle Pass, with agents from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection discovering 6.5 tons of the illicit drug. The intercepted shipment had an estimated street value of $117.1 million.
In Dallas, drug crime has been on the rise since 2023. According to data from the City’s crime analytics dashboard, reports of drug offenses have grown from 9,806 in 2022 to 10,253 in 2023 for an increase of 4.6%. So far this year, 1,459 drug violations have been recorded as of February 27.
The Dallas Police Department’s efforts to curb crime have been hampered by a longstanding officer shortage. DPD fields just 3,000 officers even though a City report called for a force of 4,000 to adequately promote public safety citywide.
City officials voted in a $654 million budget for DPD this year, which is considerably less than the spending levels on police operations seen in other high-crime jurisdictions like Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York City.