United States Drug Enforcement Administration

WASHINGTON - A senior paramilitary leader and one of Colombia’s most notorious drug traffickers was sentenced on Friday to serve 198 months in prison for his role leading an international drug trafficking conspiracy responsible for the importation of ton-quantities of cocaine into the United States. DEA Acting Administrator Chuck Rosenberg...

LOS ANGELES - A former baggage handler employed at Los Angeles International Airport was arrested Tuesday by authorities investigating the use of employee credentials to breach airport security. Alberto H. Botello, 23, of South Gate, was taken into custody without incident by officers from the Drug Enforcement Administration and the...

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...

RENO, Nev. - Richard Winston West II, aka Richie West, former manager of the Jones-West Ford dealership in Reno, pleaded guilty today to prescription drug conspiracy and possession with intent to distribute oxycodone. Special Agent in Charge Steve Comer of the DEA’s Los Angeles field division, U.S. Attorney Daniel G...

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”...

LOS ANGELES - A federal grand jury has named a Jamaican man in an indictment that accuses him of supplying a Jet Blue flight attendant with nearly 60 pounds of cocaine that she attempted to smuggle on to a plane at Los Angeles International Airport. Gaston Brown, 39, of Jamaica...

LOS ANGELES - Special Agents with the Drug Enforcement Administration and Detectives with the Ventura County Combined Agency Team just culminated a six-month long investigation into a Ventura County based, poly-drug trafficking organization. During the investigation into Toribio Aros-Osorio’s narcotics trafficking activities, investigators determined large quantities of narcotics were being...

LOS ANGELES - Two brothers who owned a West Los Angeles pharmacy were found guilty by a federal jury today of operating a years-long narcotic drug trafficking, money laundering and tax fraud conspiracy that illegally sold prescription narcotics to black market customers across the United States. Brentwood residents Berry Kabov...

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...