SAN DIEGO – Four indictments were unsealed in federal court charging 16 individuals throughout San Diego County with distributing large quantities of methamphetamine, fentanyl and heroin and laundering drug-trafficking proceeds. In a coordinated takedown yesterday, more than 115 federal, state and local law enforcement officials arrested 10 defendants and executed...

SAN DIEGO – Marcus Ray Chavez was sentenced in federal court today to 262 months in prison for providing the fentanyl pills that resulted in the fatal overdose of a 15-year-old girl in 2022. According to court documents, on at least four occasions between September and November 2022, Chavez provided...

SAN DIEGO – Edgar Perez Villa, an alleged member of a Tijuana-based enforcement group for the Cártel de Jalisco Nueva Generación, commonly known as CJNG, was extradited from Mexico to the United States on Thursday and made his first appearance in federal court in San Diego today. Perez Villa was...

SAN DIEGO – U.S. District Court Judge Todd Robinson sentenced Lucresia Stone-Rojas of San Diego today to 86 months in prison for being a felon in possession of a firearm on November 12, 2023, and possession with intent to distribute heroin on December 27, 2023. Stone-Rojas previously pleaded guilty in...

SAN DIEGO – Alleged Sinaloa Cartel cell leader Octavio Leal-Hernandez, aka Chapito Leal, who is believed responsible for trafficking large amounts of methamphetamine, cocaine, heroin and marijuana into the United States from Mexico, appeared in federal court today following his extradition from Mexico yesterday. Leal-Hernandez was indicted by a federal...

SAN DIEGO –Scott Anthony Sargent of San Diego pleaded guilty in federal court today, admitting that he supplied the fentanyl that caused the fatal overdoses of a 40-year-old woman and a 35-year-old man in North Park in 2022. San Diego Police officers, along with investigators from the Drug Enforcement Administration’s...

SAN DIEGO – Keith Octavio Rodriguez Padilla, a prolific firearms trafficker, was sentenced in federal court today to 19.5 years in custody for his role in supplying weapons and tens of thousands of rounds of ammunition to the Sinaloa Cartel. This case is part of a long-running investigation targeting the...

SAN DIEGO - This morning, the Drug Enforcement (DEA) San Diego Field Division's Narcotics Task (NTF) along with the San Diego County Sheriff's Department and Health Advocates Rejecting Marijuana, (HARM) announce the total amount of illegal marijuana plants seized in San Diego County in 2013. During calendar year 2013, NTF...

SAN DIEGO & IMPERIAL, Calif. - In November 2010, special agents with the Imperial County Narcotic Task (ICNTF) initiated a California State wiretap investigation into the importation and transportation activities of a Drug Trafficking (DTO) based in Mexicali, Baja California (BCN), Mexico. Dubbed Operation Cerberus, this investigation targeted Sinaloa Cartel...

SAN DIEGO & IMPERIAL, Calif. - The final tally is in from the 7th National Prescription Take-Back Day this past Saturday, October 26, 2013. DEA and its partners took back prescription drugs at 40 locations in San Diego County and three locations in Imperial County. Over the course of four...