United States Drug Enforcement Administration

CHINO, Calif. - A two month gang related drug-trafficking investigation came to a successful conclusion afterofficers served four search warrants Wednesday, resulting in seven arrests. The investigation, known as “Operation Checkmate,” began in July of this year through the collaborative efforts of the Chino Police Department and the Drug Enforcement...

LOS ANGELES - A Baldwin Park man and former 18th Street gang member pleaded guilty to a federal drug trafficking offense and admitted he was the triggerman in the previously unsolved 2006 murder of a person who had failed to pay “taxes” to a member of the Mexican Mafia. Eddie...

LAS VEGAS - U.S. District Judge Larry R. Hicks sentenced a Reno man to 12½ years in prison and five years of supervised release following his arrest and conviction for possessing approximately one kilogram of pure methamphetamine in his vehicle. Francisco Fuentes Ibarra, 35, pleaded guilty in May to one...

NASSAU, BAHAMAS - A joint task force from Operation Bahamas, Turks and (OPBAT) seized 2,842 pounds of marijuana worth an estimated wholesale value of over $2.5 million during three separate law enforcement operations in the Bahamas this past weekend. The OPBAT task force was comprised of elements from the U.S...

MIAMI - A.D. Wright, Special Agent in Charge, Drug Enforcement (DEA), Miami Field Division, Wifredo A. Ferrer, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, Paul C. May, Sheriff, Okeechobee County Sheriff’s Office, John J. Burke, Special Agent in Charge, Florida Department of Law (FDLE), Fort Myers Regional Operation...

SANTA ANA, Calif. - A Santa Barbara-area physician who wrote numerous prescriptions for powerful painkillers for “patients” - many of whom were drug addicts, and some of whom died from drug overdose - was convicted today of 79 federal drug trafficking charges. Julio Gabriel Diaz, 67, a Goleta resident who...

MIAMI - Four Tampa residents plead guilty to their involvement in a conspiracy to import a synthetic cannabinoid, XLR-11, a/k/a “Spice,” and paraphernalia to the United (U.S.) from China, before U.S. Chief Magistrate Judge Frank J. Lynch, Jr., in Ft. Pierce, Florida. A.D. Wright, Special Agent in Charge, Drug Enforcement...

LOS ANGELES - One of the principal cocaine traffickers associated with an international narcotics ring was sentenced this morning to 20 years in federal prison. Zaid Wakil, 43, of Winston Salem, North Carolina, was sentenced by United States District Judge George H. Wu for his role in acquiring more than...

MIAMI - This week three Tampa residents pleaded guilty to their involvement in a conspiracy to import a synthetic cannabinoid, XLR-11, a/k/a “Spice,” and paraphernalia to the United States from China, before United States Chief Magistrate Judge Frank J. Lynch, Jr., in Ft. Pierce, Florida. A.D. Wright, Special Agent in...

SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. - United States District Judge Derrick K. Watson sentenced Serafine Magallon, 41, to 225 months imprisonment for conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute more than 500 grams of methamphetamine. In sentencing Magallon, a San Jose, California resident, Judge Watson found that he held...