SAN DIEGO - Chula Vista airplane broker Vicente Contreras-Amezquita of Chula Vista was sentenced today to 60 months in custody after Contreras-Amezuita pled in federal court to money laundering charges. In his plea he admitted helping hide the true origin of illegal money through the purchase of over 35 airplanes...

SAN DIEGO - The Drug Enforcement (DEA) will participate in the 17th Annual Red Ribbon Luncheon on October 12th which will be attended by more than 225 civic and business leaders, educators, law enforcement, government officials, and youth to honor and award San Diego County individuals and organizations for their...

WASHINGTON - The Department of Justice has designated Robert W. Patterson as the Drug Enforcement Administration acting administrator. Patterson was appointed as DEA’s principal deputy administrator in November 2016. In that role, he served as DEA’s chief operating officer, overseeing all of the agency’s enforcement, intelligence, administrative, and regulatory activities...

SAN DIEGO - DEA Special Agent in Charge William R. Sherman and FBI Special Agent in Charge Eric S. Birnbaum invite the community to attend the screening of an impactful documentary film created to educate the community about opiate addiction. Event: Free Movie Screening: “Chasing the Dragon: The Life of...

SAN DIEGO - Jose Rafael Camacho-Ontiveros, the alleged leader of a Mexican heroin trafficking organization, was extradited to the United States by Mexico yesterday and made his first appearance in federal court this afternoon. A federal grand jury in San Diego returned an indictment on October 14, 2011, charging Camacho-Ontiveros...

MANHATTAN, N.Y. - Joon H. Kim, the Acting United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and Raymond Donovan, the Special Agent-in-Charge of the Special Operations Division of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration today announced that Muhammad Asif Hafeez, aka “Sultan,” was provisionally arrested in London pursuant to...

WASHINGTON, D.C. - As a result of several long-term DEA investigations, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets (OFAC) today identified Mexican national Raul Flores Hernandez and the Flores Drug Trafficking (Flores DTO) as Significant Foreign Narcotics Traffickers pursuant to the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation (Kingpin Act)...

SAN DIEGO - Sinaloa Cartel Cell Leader Damaso Lopez-Serrano, aka Mini Lic, was arraigned in federal court today following his self-surrender to United States law enforcement authorities at the Calexico West Port of Entry on July 27. Lopez-Serrano, 29, is believed to be the highest-ranking Mexican cartel leader ever to...

WASHINGTON, D.C. - The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration is proposing a reduction for controlled substances that may be manufactured in the U.S. next year by 20 percent as compared to 2017, per the proposed notice being published in the Federal Register on August 7, 2017 and available for public inspection...

WASHINGTON, D.C. - The Justice Department today announced the seizure of the largest criminal marketplace on the Internet, AlphaBay, which operated for over two years on the dark web and was used to sell deadly illegal drugs, stolen and fraudulent identification documents and access devices, counterfeit goods, malware and other...