ANCHORAGE, Alaska – Michael Joseph Nicholson, 36, of Los Angeles, California, was sentenced on Oct. 8, 2019, by U.S. District Judge Timothy M. Burgess, to 10 years in prison, to be followed by a 5-year term of supervised release, for his role in a drug and money laundering conspiracy that...

ANCHORAGE, Alaska – Special agents with the Drug Enforcement Administration arrested an Anchorage nurse practitioner and a Soldotna doctor on separate federal narcotics charges, which allege that they illegally distributed large amounts of opioids and other powerful narcotics by writing prescriptions for "patients" without medical examinations and lacking medical necessity...

SAVANNAH, Ga: Pharmacists, a pharmacy, and several individuals have been named as defendants in various criminal and civil actions filed in federal court in the Southern District of Georgia as part of continuing efforts by the U.S. Attorney’s Office to combat the opioid epidemic. The actions in Georgia and Florida...

AUGUSTA, Ga. – Eight people have been charged in a 13-count federal indictment in a drug trafficking conspiracy that brought large amounts of narcotics from Atlanta for distribution in the Augusta area. The indictments stem from a two-year joint investigation by the Drug Enforcement Administration and Richmond County Sheriff’s Office...

ASHEVILLE, N.C. – Today, U.S. District Judge Martin Reidinger sentenced Oscar Orlando Navarro-Melendez, 31, a Honduran national residing in Asheville, N.C. to 135 months in prison and five years of supervised release, for possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine, announced Andrew Murray, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of North...

Rome, Ga. – Atlanta-area doctor Victor Hanson and former professional football player Sedrick Hodge have been indicted with two other individuals for illegal distribution of prescription drugs, including opioids. “Americans rely on healthcare providers, many of them medical doctors, to use their training to help patients and to ‘do no...

ATLANTA - Francisco Castaneda Rivera has been sentenced to federal prison for transporting 4.24 kilograms of heroin, hidden inside a car battery, from Texas to the Atlanta-area. Robert J. Murphy, special agent in charge of the DEA Atlanta Field Division said, “Drug traffickers like Castaneda Rivera often take extreme measures...

WAYCROSS, Ga. -- Two drug traffickers, including an illegal alien with ties to a Mexican drug cartel, will spend more than a decade in federal prison after sentencing in a methamphetamine conspiracy. Ricardo Santana-Hernandez, a/k/a “Richard Hernandez,” a/k/a “Armond,” a/k/a “Armani,” 32, of C’daltimairano, Guerroro, Mexico, was sentenced to 135...

ROME, Ga. - Daniel Landa-Duerta, Mauricio Dominguez-Vazquez, and Jorge Armando Avalos-Menera have been arraigned on federal charges related to methamphetamine seized from a conversion laboratory in Dallas, Georgia. “The cocktail of deadly chemicals used to manufacture methamphetamine are a recipe for disaster,” said Special Agent in Charge of the DEA...

ATLANTA – Coleman Warnock and Adrian Banks have been sentenced to federal prison for conspiring to manufacture and possess phencyclidine, a psychedelic controlled substance commonly known as “PCP” and “angel dust,” with intent to distribute. The concealed drug lab they operated in Fulton County exploded in July 2013, and burned...