CLEVELAND – Five individuals will now face prison time for their roles in a drug trafficking conspiracy that trafficked illegal drugs from California to Ohio. Terrance Gainer, 29, of Akron, was sentenced to 240 months (20 years) in prison and five years of supervised released after pleading guilty to: Conspiracy...

Washington, D.C. - A federal grand jury in the District of Columbia returned an indictment today charging Ramon Alvarez Ayala, 44, and Rafael Alvarez Ayala, 42, both Mexican nationals, with conspiracy to distribute cocaine and methamphetamine for importation into the United States and possessing a firearm, including a machinegun, in...

CLEVELAND – Hundreds of individuals were apprehended and taken into custody throughout northern Ohio as part of a multi-agency strategic initiative to combat violent crime. The DEA Detroit Field Division was part of a multi-jurisdictional sweep across eight cities, known as Operation Northern Shield, was coordinated among federal, state, and...

DETROIT - Janero Van DeMario Garrett, 49, a United States citizen and multi-convicted felon, was apprehended in Mazatlán, Sinaloa, Mexico July 17, after a joint operation conducted by the DEA Detroit Field Division, DEA-Mexico, U.S. Marshals Mexico Foreign Field Office and U.S. Marshals Detroit Office, FBI-Detroit, and Mexican authorities, announced...

GRAND RAPIDS, MICHIGAN – U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Michigan Timothy VerHey announced that two Colombian nationals made their initial appearance in a federal court in Grand Rapids on Friday after they were extradited to the United States on Thursday. According to the indictment, from November 2024 through...

ALEXANDRIA, Va. – A dual Lebanese-Syrian national was sentenced today to 30 years in prison for narco-terrorism conspiracy and 20 years in prison for conspiracy to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization, to be served concurrently. According to court records and evidence presented at trial, Antoine Kassis...

Washington, D.C. - A Honduras-based Chinese national extradited from Guatemala pleaded guilty today to conspiring to import cocaine into the United States, conspiring to launder money derived from drug trafficking, and to providing material support to a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization, specifically the Cártel de Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG). According...

Washington, D.C - A Mexican national was sentenced today to 14 years in prison for his role in a conspiracy to import approximately 1,900 kilograms of cocaine into the United States. According to court documents, Jesus Rauda-Avila, 46, was a member of a Mexico-based drug trafficking organization (DTO) led by...

DAYTON, Ohio – Ernesto Villalobos, 48, of Los Angeles, was sentenced in U.S. District Court to 150 months in prison, June 15, for distributing kilograms of cocaine, fentanyl and methamphetamine throughout the United States, including in the Southern District of Ohio. A Drug Enforcement Administration investigation revealed, Villalobos served as...

CINCINNATI – An ongoing investigation stemming from the May 10 arrest of two Southwest Ohio relatives has led investigators to taking an additional 244 kilograms of suspected cocaine from the alleged drug traffickers. Damian Galan, 31, of Cincinnati, and Diego Galan, 19, of Fairfield, appeared in federal court following their...