SAN DIEGO – April Spring Kelly, of San Diego, was sentenced in federal court on Friday to 14 years in prison for conspiring to smuggle more than 450,000 fentanyl pills from Mexico into the United States during a nine-month period ending in October 2018. According to admissions in her plea...

SAN DIEGO – Orlando Balderas Guerrero, of Menifee, Calif., was sentenced in federal court today to 10 years in custody for participating in a conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine. According to his plea agreement, Guerrero admitted that for a one-year period, he obtained bulk methamphetamine from a broker in Mexico and...

PORTLAND, Ore .—David Carl Paulsen, 33, of Bend, Oregon, was sentenced on Dec.10, 2019, to 12 months and one day in federal prison and two years’ supervised release for illegally manufacturing and possessing marijuana during a March 2018 butane honey oil explosion in Bend. According to court documents, on March...

SEATTLE – Two Skagit County residents are charged in U.S. District Court in Seattle in connection with a drug distribution ring selling fake oxycodone pills laced with fentanyl in Whatcom and Skagit Counties. The pills are linked to the overdose death of a 17-year-old Bellingham teen. Rosaliana Lopez-Rodriguez, 21, of...

SEATTLE - Jaime Montalvo-Mariscal, 27, of Pasco, Washington, was sentenced Nov. 18, 2019, after having pleaded guilty on July 22, 2019, for conspiracy to traffic in methamphetamine, fentanyl and heroin. Senior U.S. District Judge Nielsen sentenced Montalvo-Mariscal to 210 months in prison. DEA Special Agent in Charge Keith Weis was...

SAN DIEGO – Americans nationwide have once again shown their strong support for DEA’s National Prescription Drug Take Back Day by dropping off nearly 883,000 pounds of medications during the October 2019 Take Back event. DEA, along with its law enforcement partners, has now collected nearly 12.7 million pounds of...

SAN DIEGO – The Drug Enforcement Administration is alerting the public of dangerous counterfeit pills killing Americans. Mexican drug cartels are manufacturing mass quantities of counterfeit prescription pills containing fentanyl, a dangerous synthetic opioid that is lethal in minute doses, for distribution throughout North America. Based on a sampling of...

SAN DIEGO – On Saturday, October 26, DEA and its national, tribal and community partners will hold the 18th National Prescription Drug Take Back Day across the country. The service is free and anonymous. For the first time, DEA will accept vaping devices and cartridges at all National Prescription Drug...

SAN DIEGO – Pacific Beach resident Maya Kol pleaded guilty in federal court today, admitting that he sold fentanyl powder that caused the death of one man and sent another to the hospital over Labor Day weekend in September 2018. A third man - Kol’s source of the fentanyl -...

SEATTLE - Federal, state and local law enforcement fanned out across the Puget Sound region today arresting 17 people in connection with multiple counts of drug trafficking. The drug trafficking organization brought large loads of heroin and methamphetamine into the Seattle area. In one instance law enforcement seized 33 pounds...