United States Drug Enforcement Administration

PHOENIX – DEA announces the 17th National Prescription Drug Take Back will be held April 27, from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. local time. Sites will be set up throughout communities nationwide so local residents can anonymously return their unwanted, unneeded or expired prescription drugs for safe disposal. (DEA cannot...

PHOENIX – The Drug Enforcement Administration Phoenix Field Division, along with the Arizona Attorney General’s Office, announce the arrest of naturopathic medical doctor Jelina Ip and her mother, Alane Ip, following the execution of state-authorized warrants yesterday morning in Tempe. The Ips were owners and operators of Ava Pain Management...

PHOENIX - Special Agent in Charge Doug Coleman announced the arrest of Joshua Fassett, a 25-year-old Tempe man taken into custody by DEA agents. Fassett was indicted by a federal grand jury on April 10, 2019. The indictment and arrest of Fassett stemmed from a DEA investigation into the overdose...

SPOKANE, Wash. – Carlos Peraza-Kissi, age 25, of Yakima, Washington, was sentenced April 17, 2019, for possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine. United States District Judge Stanley A. Bastian sentenced Peraza-Kissi to a 188-month term of imprisonment, to be followed by a five-year term of court supervision after he is...

BOISE, Idaho – Roberto Joe Miguel Serpa, 39, of Caldwell, was sentenced this week for his role in two federal drug crimes, announced U.S. Attorney Bart M. Davis. Serpa was sentenced on April 16, 2019, to 126 months in prison followed by five years of supervised release. Serpa was sentenced...

BOISE, Idaho – Jennifer L. Fanopoulos, 41, of Boise, was sentenced yesterday to three years of probation for obtaining controlled substances by fraud. Fanopoulos was sentenced by Senior U.S. District Judge Edward J. Lodge. Fanopoulos pleaded guilty on Oct. 25, 2018. According to court records, Fanopoulos was employed as a...

PORTLAND, Ore . – Paul Eugene Thomas, 38, of Portland, pleaded guilty on April 10, 2019, to one count of conspiring to manufacture, possess with intent to distribute, distributing marijuana, maintaining drug involved premises and one count of money laundering for his role in a vast conspiracy to traffic marijuana...

COEUR D’ALENE, Idaho – Marcella Moore, 44, of Lewiston, Idaho, was sentenced to federal prison earlier today for conspiracy to distribute controlled substances. Chief U.S. District Judge David C. Nye sentenced Moore to 54 months in prison followed by three years supervised release. Judge Nye also ordered Moore to pay...

PORTLAND, Ore.—Esteban Guillen Ramirez, 53, of Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico, was sentenced on April 7, 2019, to one year in federal prison and three years’ supervised release for his role in a complex black market peso exchange money laundering scheme. The scheme was uncovered in 2015 following a lengthy investigation by...

SEATTLE – Three members of an international drug trafficking organization pleaded guilty on March 25, 2019, in U.S. District Court in Seattle to distributing more than a thousand kilograms of marijuana. The defendants admitted in their plea agreements that they used money from conspirators in the Peoples Republic of China...