United States Drug Enforcement Administration

SAN DIEGO – DEA Acting Administrator Uttam Dhillon today announced the publication of the 2019 National Drug Threat Assessment, which outlines the threats posed to the United States by domestic and international drug trafficking and the abuse of illicit drugs. “This year’s report illustrates a shifting drug landscape in the...

SAN DIEGO – After a challenging multi-year, inter-agency investigation, utilizing technology capabilities, intelligence gathering, and community outreach, law enforcement partners on the San Diego Tunnel Task Force have exposed the longest illicit cross-border tunnel ever discovered along the Southwest border. The tunnel originates in Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico in an...

TAMPA, Fla. - Shamon D. Heatly (37, St. Petersburg) was sentenced to 12 years and 7 months in federal prison for selling cocaine. Heatly had pleaded guilty on October 28, 2019. According to court documents, an undercover law enforcement officer met with Heatly, at which time Heatly directed the officer...

TAMPA, Fla. – Manuel Alfonso Munoz, 48, of Tampa, was sentenced to nine years and three months in federal prison for selling cocaine. Munoz pleaded guilty on Feb. 27, 2019. According to court documents, Munoz sold cocaine to a confidential informant on six occasions. The total amount of cocaine sold...

TAMPA, Fla. – A federal grand jury today returned an indictment charging Damian Sierra, 41, of Port St. Lucie, with possessing 500 grams or more of cocaine with the intent to distribute. If convicted, Sierra faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 5 years, up to 40 years, in federal prison...

SAN DIEGO – Egisto Salerno, a medical doctor practicing in San Diego, pleaded guilty to opioid distribution in federal court today, admitting that he signed bogus prescriptions for multiple deceased or incarcerated patients. According to his plea agreement, Salerno, 75, illegally distributed 78,544 hydrocodone pills. Hydrocodone is an opioid pain...

TAMPA, Fla. - Jimmy Riascos-Riascos, 44, Colombia, South America, was sentenced to 24 years and 4 months in federal prison for conspiring to distribute cocaine on board vessels subject to the jurisdiction of the United States. Riascos-Riascos had pleaded guilty on July 18, 2019. According to court records, Riascos-Riascos was...

ORLANDO, Fla. - Kenneth Bernard Smith, 55, of Winter Garden, was sentenced to 12 years in federal prison for possessing a loaded firearm and ammunition as a convicted felon, and for possessing with the intent to distribute heroin and cocaine. Smith had previously pleaded guilty to the offenses. According to...

SAN DIEGO – Orlando Balderas Guerrero, of Menifee, Calif., was sentenced in federal court today to 10 years in custody for participating in a conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine. According to his plea agreement, Guerrero admitted that for a one-year period, he obtained bulk methamphetamine from a broker in Mexico and...

SAN DIEGO – April Spring Kelly, of San Diego, was sentenced in federal court on Friday to 14 years in prison for conspiring to smuggle more than 450,000 fentanyl pills from Mexico into the United States during a nine-month period ending in October 2018. According to admissions in her plea...