SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Two members of a Sacramento-based drug trafficking organization were sentenced Monday by U.S. District Judge Dale A. Drozd for fentanyl trafficking and related crimes, Acting U.S. Attorney Michele Beckwith and Drug Enforcement Administration Special Agent in Charge Bob P. Beris announced. Jose Guadalupe Lopez-Zamora, 30, of Sacramento...

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration today announced the release of the 2025 National Drug Threat Assessment (NDTA), DEA’s comprehensive review of the threats posed to the United States by deadly illicit drugs and the violent domestic and international drug trafficking organizations responsible for producing and trafficking the drugs...

OAKLAND, Calif. – Jose Luis Garcia, the co-owner of Envios Express, a money transmitting business in Oakland, was sentenced this week to 12 months in federal prison. The Honorable Haywood S. Gilliam, Jr., United States District Judge, handed down the sentence on Jan. 15, 2025. Garcia, 57, of Oakland, was...

OAKLAND, Calif. – Christian Grajeda-Varela, a Honduran national who pleaded guilty to fentanyl trafficking and money laundering, was sentenced to 46 months in federal prison. The sentence was handed down by the Hon. Haywood S. Gilliam, Jr., United States District Judge. Grajeda-Varela, 25, was charged by indictment on Aug. 2...

Washington - The Justice Department today announced a 10-count superseding indictment charging Los Angeles-based associates of Mexico’s Sinaloa drug cartel with conspiring with money-laundering groups linked to Chinese underground banking to launder drug trafficking proceeds. During the conspiracy, more than $50 million in drug proceeds flowed between the Sinaloa Cartel...

OAKLAND, Calif. – Felipe de Jesus Ornelas Mora, the owner of Rincon Musical, a money transmitting business in Oakland, was sentenced today to 18 months in federal prison following his conviction for conspiracy to commit money laundering, announced First Assistant United States Attorney Patrick D. Robbins; IRS Criminal Investigation (CI)...

SAN FRANCISCO – The United States Attorney’s Office has charged Yessenia Margarita Barrientos-Lainez—a former employee of a money services business in the Tenderloin district—with conspiring to launder drug proceeds by wiring large sums of money abroad for a known drug trafficker in the San Francisco Bay Area, announced United States...

OAKLAND, Calif. – The Office of the United States Attorney filed federal criminal complaints charging money service business employees Griselda Cancelada Liceaga, Veronica Mora, and Yoselin Perez Ramirez with conspiracy to commit money laundering and identity theft in connection with a scheme to facilitate wire transfers for drug traffickers sending...

Washington, D.C. - Yesterday, a federal jury in Maryland convicted two El Salvadorian nationals for conspiring to participate in La Mara Salvatrucha, a transnational criminal enterprise, commonly known as MS-13. Junior Noe Alvarado-Requeno, aka Insolente, aka Trankilo, 25, and Miguel Angel Corea Diaz, aka Reaper, 39, were convicted of multiple...

WASHINGTON – A Chinese national and naturalized U.S. citizen pleaded guilty yesterday to his involvement in a conspiracy to launder at least $30 million in drug proceeds on behalf of foreign drug-trafficking organizations. Another Chinese national was sentenced to seven years in prison today for his role in the same...