United States Drug Enforcement Administration

ALBUQUERQUE – This week, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), and the U.S. Marshal Service, the Las Cruces Police Department, and the Doña Ana Sheriff’s Office, conducted a coordinated operation to dismantle a significant drug trafficking network in Las Cruces, New Mexico. The operation targeted 15...

Washington - The Justice Department today announced a 10-count superseding indictment charging Los Angeles-based associates of Mexico’s Sinaloa drug cartel with conspiring with money-laundering groups linked to Chinese underground banking to launder drug trafficking proceeds. During the conspiracy, more than $50 million in drug proceeds flowed between the Sinaloa Cartel...

WASHINGTON, D.C.– A 19-count indictment charges eight men from the metropolitan Washington D.C. area with participating in an interstate fentanyl and cocaine conspiracy believed responsible for distributing multi-kilogram quantities of narcotics in the region. The announcement was made today by U.S. Attorney Matthew M. Graves, DEA Special Agent in Charge...

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. – A federal grand jury in Charlottesville, Virginia has indicted 17 individuals as part of a large-scale drug conspiracy that distributed more than 500 grams of methamphetamine, fentanyl, heroin, and cocaine in and around the Charlottesville region. The 37-count indictment, returned under seal August 29, 2023, partially unsealed...

WASHINGTON – This morning, law enforcement agents from the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD), Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI) arrested 12 alleged members of a violent drug trafficking organization (“DTO”), known...

Greenbelt, Maryland – U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis sentenced Charles Benjamin Stewart, Jr., age 49, of Upper Marlboro, Maryland, on April 18, 2022, to eight years in federal prison, followed by five years of supervised release for conspiracy to distribute heroin and cocaine; for illegally transporting a firearm obtained out...

Baltimore, Md., – Dwight Antonio Pitts, age 47, of Hanover, Maryland, pleaded guilty on November 19, 2021, to charges related to his participation in a drug distribution conspiracy involving large amounts of fentanyl, cocaine, and other drugs, shipped through the U.S. Mail from California to Maryland. The guilty plea was...

Baltimore, Md., – U.S. District Judge James K. Bredar sentenced Jerold Gilliam, age 40, of Baltimore, Maryland to nine years in federal prison, followed by three years of supervised release, for conspiracy to distribute a substance containing fentanyl and possession with the intent to distribute a substance containing fentanyl. The...

Baltimore, Md., – Tirrel Saunders, a/k/a “Pretty”, age 35, of Baltimore, Maryland, pleaded guilty today to conspiracy to distribute controlled substances. Saunders was a member of the Gregory Butler Drug Trafficking Organization (“Butler DTO”) which distributed heroin, fentanyl, cocaine, and crack cocaine in Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania. The...

PENSACOLA, Fla. – Defendants previously indicted and later convicted in multiple cases for their participation in an opioid, methamphetamine, and cocaine distribution ring operating in Okaloosa County, Fla., were sentenced last week in the Northern District of Florida. The prosecutions were the result of a large-scale multi-agency investigation spearheaded by...