United States Drug Enforcement Administration

ATLANTA - Dr. Romie Earl Roland has been sentenced to ten years and ten months for conspiring to distribute Schedule II controlled substances by illegally prescribing prescription painkillers for no legitimate medical purpose. Also indicted and sentenced for their respective roles in the operation of the pain clinic were seven...

ATLANTA - Kevin Bristol Patterson, 35, of Blairsville, Georgia, was sentenced today by U.S. District Judge Eleanor L. Ross to 18 years and four months in federal prison to be followed by five years of supervised release, and a $600 special assessment. Patterson’s sentence was a result of his role...

WASHINGTON D.C. - China’s National Narcotics Control Commission announced this week that scheduling controls against four fentanyl-class substances - carfentanil, furanyl fentanyl, valeryl fentanyl, and acryl fentanyl - will begin on March 1, 2017. This announcement is the culmination of ongoing collaboration between the Drug Enforcement (DEA) and the Government...

GREENEVILLE, Tenn. - Tommy Allen, aka “Bert”, 30, of Kingsport, Tennessee, formerly of Forrest City, Arkansas, was sentenced today by U.S. District Court Judge R. Leon Jordan, to serve 240 months in federal prison for distributing crack cocaine. Upon his release from prison, he will be on supervised release for...

WASHINGTON - DEA and the Southern District of New York today announced the arrival of four individuals from Kenya to New York charged with participating in a massive global drug trafficking enterprise, and includes the leader of a well-known organized crime family in Africa. BAKTASH AKASHA ABDALLA, a/k/a “Baktash Akasha,”...

MONGOMERY, Ala. - Dr. Robert M. Ritchea, 54, of LaGrange, Georgia, pled guilty to conspiring to unlawfully distribute a controlled substance through operating a “pill mill” and money laundering scheme, announced Drug Enforcement Administration Assistant Special Agent-in-Charge Bret Hamilton and United States Attorney George L. Beck, Jr. A “pill mill”...

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. - Cornelius Q. Hill, 29, of Chicago, was sentenced to 90 months in prison today by U.S. District Judge Travis R. McDonough for possession with intent to distribute heroin, possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime, and being a felon in possession of a...

WASHINGTON - Acting Attorney General Sally Q. Yates today announced that Joaquin Archivaldo Guzman Loera, known by various aliases including “El Chapo,” will face charges filed in Brooklyn, New York, following his extradition to the United States from Mexico, alleging that he was operating a continuing criminal enterprise and other...

WASHINGTON - Joaquin Archivaldo Guzman Loera, known by various aliases including “El Chapo,” has arrived in the United States to face criminal charges in connection with his leadership of the Mexican organized crime syndicate known as the Sinaloa Cartel. Guzman Loera is charged in six separate indictments throughout the United...

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. - Three defendants were sentenced to federal prison last week for drug trafficking, announced Drug Enforcement (DEA) Assistant Special Agent in Charge Matthew Barden and Kenneth Elser, United States Attorney for the Western District of Arkansas. Santiago (aka Chuco), age 47, of Commerce, Oklahoma, was sentenced to 151...