News Release
March 2, 2007
Contact: Erin Mulvey
212 337-2906

Trafficker Charged With Transporting At Least 200 Tons
Of Cocaine Arrives In New York

MAR 2 -- (New York) John P. Gilbride, Special Agent in Charge of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration in New York and MICHAEL J. GARCIA, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced that GILBERTO SALINAS DORIA arrived February 28, 2007 in New York after being extradited from Mexico on federal charges of transporting at least 200 tons of cocaine to the United States. According to the Indictment filed in Manhattan federal court:

“Gilberto Salinas Doria has orchestrated the delivery of thousands of pounds of cocaine into New York," said DEA Special Agent in Charge John P. Gilbride. "Today he faces the consequence of his criminal activity: extradition to the United States. DEA stands firmly with our local and international law enforcement partners in this battle against drug abuse, and we will continue to identify drug traffickers, from the kingpins to the street dealers, and put them behind bars."

From about 1994 through February 1999, SALINAS DORIA, 49, received at least 200 tons of cocaine from co-defendants ALCIDES RAMON MAGANA and JESUS ALBINO QUINTERO MERAZ, in the areas of Playa del Carmen, Quintano Roo, Mexico and Reynosa, Tamaulipus, Mexico. As a part of a larger narcotics trafficking conspiracy, SALINAS DORIA arranged for the transportation and delivery of the cocaine to co-conspirators in Manhattan and other cities in the United States.

In connection with the cocaine trafficking activity, RAMON MAGANA and QUINTERO MERAZ arranged to make payments to a third co-defendant, MARIO ERNESTO VILLANUEVA MADRID, who was then the Governor of the State of Quintana Roo. Specifically, during the period from about 1994 through at least December 1996, RAMON MAGANA arranged to pay VILLANUEVA MADRID approximately $500,000 in United States currency for each shipment of cocaine that RAMON MAGANA transported through Quintana Roo.

SALINAS DORIA is charged with one count of conspiracy to import cocaine into the United States, and one count of conspiracy to distribute cocaine and possess cocaine with intent to distribute. If convicted, SALINAS DORIA faces on each count a maximum sentence of life in prison and a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years in prison.