SPOKANE, Wash.– Acting United States Attorney Stephanie Van Marter announced that Luis Esquivel-Bolanos (a/k/a “Colorado”), age 45, of Guerrero, Mexico was sentenced on multiple drug trafficking and firearms charges. Esquivel-Bolanos was found guilty on April 16, 2025, following a jury trial. United States District Judge Thomas O. Rice sentenced Esquivel-Bolanos...

TACOMA, Wash. – Key members of a drug trafficking organization connected to the Aryan Family prison gang were sentenced today in U.S. District Court in Tacoma to prison terms. Jesse James Bailey, 40, was sentenced to 210 months (17.5 years) in prison. His wife, Candace Bailey, 43, was sentenced to...

SEATTLE, Wash. – A U.S. citizen deeply enmeshed in an international drug smuggling conspiracy was sentence in U.S. District Court in Seattle to five years in prison. Just over a year ago, law enforcement teams from the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Seattle Police Department and IRS Criminal Investigation executed 24...

ANCHORAGE, Alaska – The final defendant in a Southeast Alaska drug trafficking conspiracy pleaded guilty today to conspiring to traffic drugs and launder money connected to a transnational drug trafficking enterprise. According to court documents, on Aug. 24, 2022, U.S. Postal Inspectors seized a suspicious package addressed to Patricia Seal-Uttke...

Spokane, Wash. – Jose Efrain Gonzalez-Rodriguez, age 24, of Mexico, who was unlawfully present in the United States, was sentenced after pleading guilty to drug trafficking and firearm charges. United States District Judge Thomas O. Rice imposed a sentence of 120 months in prison to be followed by 5 years...

BOSTON – A Dominican national residing in Lawrence has been indicted by a federal grand jury in Boston for allegedly distributing 1,000 fentanyl pills while on federal supervised release for a prior drug trafficking conviction involving heroin and cocaine. Wagner Ismael Mejia Sanchez, a/k/a “Jose F. Rosario,” a/k/a “Jose Majimbe,”...

Tacoma – A major redistributor for a South Sound-based drug trafficking ring that was connected to Aryan prison gangs was sentenced today in U.S. District Court in Tacoma to 126 months in prison, announced Acting U.S. Attorney Teal Luthy Miller. 46-year-old Joseph Hempel, of Burien, Washington, was a high-volume drug...

PORTLAND, Ore.—A Salem, Oregon man was sentenced to federal prison for possessing and trafficking more than 40 pounds of fentanyl, methamphetamine, and heroin. Rico Anthony Russell Rigutto, 46, was sentenced to 108 months in federal prison and five years’ supervised release. According to court documents, on December 14, 2021, as...

SEATTLE – A 38-year-old Mexican citizen who previously resided in Kent, Washington was sentenced today in U.S. District Court in Seattle to ten years in prison for drug trafficking. Ramon Duarte Garcia was arrested in June 2024, following a drug investigation lasting nearly four years. Between 2020 and June 2024...

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...