MIAMI – Adalberto Fructuoso Comparan-Rodriguez, a/k/a “Fruto,” the former mayor of Aguililla, Mexico and, according to the allegations, a leader of the United Cartels in Michoacán, Mexico, made his initial appearance in federal court in Miami, Florida today after his extradition from Guatemala. A South Florida grand jury returned an...

BROOKLYN, N.Y. – Martin Leonel Perez Castro, also known as “Richard,” was extradited this morning to the United States from Colombia to face charges in the Eastern District of New York of leading a continuing criminal enterprise and participating in an international cocaine manufacture and distribution conspiracy. According to the...

BOSTON – A Lowell man was sentenced yesterday in federal court in Boston for his role in a cocaine trafficking conspiracy connected to a Colombian-based criminal enterprise. Juan Pablo Ariasgil, 41, of Lowell, was sentenced by U.S. District Court Chief Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV to four years in prison...

DALLAS, TX – A Panamanian national has pleaded guilty to drug trafficking violations during his federal trial in the Eastern District of Texas, announced Eduardo A. Chávez, Special Agent in Charge of the DEA Dallas Field Division. Jorge Albeiro Silva-Salazar, 53, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to manufacture and distribute five...

MILWAUKEE, Wis. -- John G. McGarry, Assistant Special Agent in Charge of U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration-Wisconsin, and U.S. Attorney Richard G. Frohling of the Eastern District of Wisconsin announced that on March 31, 2022, Luis A. Morales, 41, the former owner of Mr. Taco and Savor Food & Spirits, was...

BROOKLYN, N.Y. – Earlier today, at the federal courthouse in Brooklyn, Luis Taveras was sentenced by United States District Judge Kiyo A. Matsumoto to 17 years’ imprisonment for attempting to commit obstruction-of-justice murder. Taveras pleaded guilty to the charge in January 2020. Breon Peace, United States Attorney for the Eastern...

SAN DIEGO – A federal grand jury indictment was unsealed in San Diego today against Guatemalan national Axel Bladimir Montejo Saenz, aka “Mosh,” aka “Kraken.” The indictment returned on November 1, 2018, charges Montejo Saenz with Conspiracy to Distribute Cocaine Intended for Unlawful Importation and Conspiracy to Distribute Cocaine on...

TAMPA, Fla. – A federal jury has convicted Luis Elias Angulo Leones (Ecuador, 29), Jhonis Alexis Landazuri Arboleda (Colombia, 33), and Dilson Daniel Arboleda Quinones (Colombia, 25) of possessing and conspiring to possess with intent to distribute five kilograms or more of cocaine on a vessel subject to the jurisdiction...

NEWARK, N.J. – Special Agent in Charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration’s New Jersey Division Susan A. Gibson and U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey Philip R. Sellinger announced a United States citizen who had been residing in the Dominican Republic was sentenced today to 178 months in...

SAN DIEGO – Suspected drug trafficker Rafael Orlando Ramirez Barillas, a Guatemalan national who was extradited to the United States from Guatemala on Thursday, February 10, 2022 to face international cocaine trafficking and maritime smuggling charges in the Southern District of California, appeared in federal court today and was ordered...