DEC 6 - LOS ANGELES - Law enforcement authorities this morning arrested 18 defendants named in three federal grand jury indictments stemming from Operation Roman Empire, a 2½-year investigation into South Los Angeles street gangs allegedly controlled by a Mexican Mafia member who directs criminal activities through his daughter. A...

COEUR d’ALENE, Idaho - Janette Marie Baucum, 59, of Scio, Oregon, pleaded guilty on December 4, 2012, in United States District Court in Coeur d’Alene to conspiracy to structure financial transactions. According to statements made in court, in September 2007, Baucum and her husband, co-defendant Robert Baucum, used proceeds of...

TACOMA, Wash. - A Thurston County resident who shipped packages of methamphetamine and heroin to a small town in Alaska was sentenced to 20 years in prison on November 30, 2012. Robert Dean Grimes, 52, was arrested on October 14, 2011, when he returned to Washington State from Alaska. Grimes...

SEATTLE - A Canadian truck driver who was identified as a drug smuggler for a criminal group related to the Hells Angels was convicted last week in U.S. District Court in Seattle of conspiracy to distribute marijuana. James Postlethwaite, 60, of North Vancouver, BC, Canada faces a mandatory minimum 10...

SEATTLE - A 52 year old resident of Custer, Whatcom County, Washington was sentenced today in U.S. District Court in Seattle to 12 years in prison and five years of supervised release for his role as a drug courier in a massive, international drug smuggling scheme. Glen Stewart was convicted...

MEDFORD, Ore. - Today, Donald Galvan, 48, of Central Point, Oregon, was sentenced to 37 months in federal prison for conspiracy to manufacture and distribute 100 or more kilograms of marijuana. The charge stemmed from an April 2011 traffic stop in Texas where police seized 43 pounds of marijuana. The...

LOS ANGELES - A dozen people associated with a chain of nine marijuana stores that operated across Orange and Los Angeles counties were arrested this morning on federal drug trafficking charges. The 12 arrested are among 14 people named in a 14-count indictment returned last week by a federal grand...

SEATTLE - The U.S. leader of an international drug smuggling ring was sentenced today in U.S. District Court in Seattle to 15 years in prison and five years of supervised release for conspiracy to distribute controlled substances and conspiracy to commit money laundering. Jacob Saul Stuart, 39, of Kirkland, Washington...

LOS ANGELES - A federal grand jury has returned a superseding indictment that charges 16 defendants with being part of a drug trafficking organization that illegally obtained and distributed more than 900,000 OxyContin pills obtained in part through fraud against public insurance programs such as Medicare. One of the defendants...

LOS ANGELES - On October 12, 2012, a federal jury in Los Angeles convicted Mr. Aaron Sandusky, 41, of Rancho Cucamonga, former president of G3 Holistics, Inc., a marijuana business operating in the Inland Empire, of one count of conspiracy to manufacture marijuana plants, to possess with intent to distribute...