United States Drug Enforcement Administration

WASHINGTON - The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets (OFAC) today identified the Ruelas Torres Drug Trafficking (Ruelas Torres DTO) and its leader, Mexican national Jose Luis Ruelas Torres, as Significant Foreign Narcotics Traffickers pursuant to the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation (Kingpin Act). The Ruelas Torres DTO...

WASHINGTON - The United States Drug Enforcement (DEA), DEA Educational Foundation and Discovery Education, the leading provider of digital content and professional development for K-12 classrooms, announced today the finalists of the inaugural Operation Prevention Video Challenge-a peer-to-peer platform for communicating messages about the dangers of opioid misuse. The public...

WASHINGTON - The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and more than 4,200 of its law enforcement and community partners collected more unused prescription drugs than at any of the 12 previous National Prescription Drug Take Back Day events. On Saturday, April 29, the event brought in 900,386 (450 tons) at close...

WASHINGTON - Addictive prescription drugs that are thrown away or left untended on shelves and in drawers at home are often stolen and either abused or sold by family members and visitors. That’s why the DEA and thousands of its state, local, and tribal law enforcement and community partners are...

WASHINGTON - DEA and other federal officials today announced the arrest of Kassim Tajideen, a prominent financial supporter of the Hizballah terror organization. Tajideen is charged with evading U.S. sanctions imposed on him because of his financial support of Hizballah. Tajideen, 62, of Beirut, Lebanon, was arrested overseas on March...

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...

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...

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”...

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...