United States Drug Enforcement Administration

SYRACUSE, NEW YORK – Yoan Rodriguez, 24, of Syracuse, New York, was sentenced today to serve a total of 120-months incarceration based on his previous guilty plea to drug trafficking and firearms offenses, announced United States Attorney Carla B. Freedman, Special Agent in Charge Frank A. Tarentino, III, U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), New York Division, Special Agent in Charge Janeen DiGuiseppi, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Albany Field Office, and  Chief of Police Joseph Cecile, Syracuse Police Department.  Rodriguez was also ordered to serve a term of five-years supervised release following his release from prison, and to forfeit to the United States a handgun and a money judgment in the amount of $35,000.00, representing the value of unrecovered drug proceeds.

Rodriguez was one of 14 defendants charged and convicted in this case.  The investigation revealed that members of the conspiracy brought kilogram quantities of heroin and fentanyl from Pennsylvania to Syracuse, where they packaged the drugs and distributed them over several months in 2020.  During the investigation, law enforcement seized multiple kilograms of heroin and fentanyl, multiple firearms, several vehicles, and large sums of United States currency.  The other defendants charged in this case, and the sentences they received, are listed below.

This case was investigated by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), the Syracuse Police Department-Gang Violence Task Force and Special Investigations Division (GVTF and SID), the New York State Police, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security-Immigration and Customs Enforcement/Enforcement Removal Operations (ICE-ERO), the Onondaga County Sheriff’s Office, the Auburn Police Department, and the Onondaga County District Attorney’s Office, and was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Nicolas Commandeur.

This effort is part of an Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces (OCDETF) operation. OCDETF identifies, disrupts, and dismantles the highest-level criminal organizations that threaten the United States using a prosecutor-led, intelligence-driven, multi-agency approach. Additional information about the OCDETF Program can be found at https://www.justice.gov/OCDETF.