Cocaine supplier sentenced to more than 10 years in Buffalo, N.Y.
BUFFALO, N.Y. – DEA New York Division Special Agent in Charge James Hunt and U.S. Attorney James P. Kennedy, Jr., announced today that Julio Contreras, aka Blue Demon, 34, of McAllen, Texas, who was convicted of racketeering conspiracy involving five kilograms or more of cocaine, and conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute, and to distribute, five kilograms or more of cocaine, was sentenced to serve 121 months in prison by U.S. District Judge Richard J. Arcara.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Wei Xiang, who handled the case, stated that the defendant was a main source of supply of cocaine for the Schuele Boys Gang in Buffalo. The gang operated in the Schuele Avenue area of the East Side of Buffalo and was responsible for multiple acts of violence and the distribution of illegal narcotics including cocaine, crack cocaine, and marijuana. Contreras was arrested in July 2015 at the Anzalduas Port of Entry in Mission, Texas, as he attempted to return to the United States from Mexico.
Contreras supplied the Schuele Boys with upwards of $1,000,000 of cocaine on a monthly basis. In addition, the defendant purchased and built assault rifles in Texas that he then sold or traded to Mexican sources in connection with his cocaine trafficking. Contreras traveled to Buffalo on multiple occasions to meet with co-defendants Aaron Hicks and Letorrance Travis. On Dec. 18, 2010, Hicks and the defendant were arrested by police outside a residence belonging to Travis on Courtland Avenue.
Contreras was one of 28 Schuele Boys Gang members, associates and other individuals arrested and convicted in this case.
The sentencing is the culmination of an investigation by Federal Bureau of Investigation Safe Streets Task Force; the Buffalo Police Department; the Drug Enforcement Administration, Buffalo Resident Office, New York Division; the New York State Police; and the Erie County Sheriff’s Department. Additional assistance was provided by the Erie County District Attorney’s Office, the Edinboro University Police Department in Pennsylvania, the West Tennessee Judicial Drug Task Force, the City of McAllen, Texas Police Department, HSI Harlingen, Texas, and the FBI offices in Houston, Texas and Jackson, Mississippi.
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