Sentences finalized for meth trafficking organization with local ties

Appeal-Democrat, Marysville, Calif.
·2 min read

May 15—The leader of a methamphetamine trafficking organization with ties to a Mexican cartel that distributed drugs in the Yuba-Sutter area was sentenced this week, bringing an end to the case that saw a total of 10 men sentenced to prison.

Considered to be the leader of the organization, Vicente Velazquez was sentenced on Thursday to 17.5 years in prison by U.S. District Judge Troy Nunley for conspiring to distribute methamphetamine.

The other nine men part of the organization had already been handed prison sentences for their involvement — three of which were Yuba City residents at the time of their arrest, including Pedro Fuentes (sentenced to 10 years in prison on Jan. 24, 2019), Luis Alberto Fernandez Contreras (sentenced to 4 years and 4 months in prison on Sept. 7, 2017), and Arnulfo Sanchez (sentenced to 4 years in prison on Aug. 17, 2017).

Members of the organization were indicted on drug trafficking charges in 2016 after a two-year wiretap investigation. Velazquez and the organization ordered methamphetamine from a supplier in Mexico and then coordinated the distribution of methamphetamine through sub-distributors, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of California. Methamphetamine and cocaine were distributed in Yuba, Sutter, Butte and Sacramento counties.

Federal and regional agents said the men were drug runners and middlemen with connections to a Mexican drug cartel. An investigation of the men involved the use of surveillance, confidential informants and court-ordered wiretaps to gather information for the case, according to Appeal archives.

Agencies involved in the case included the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Yuba-Sutter Narcotics Task Force, the Butte Interagency Narcotics Task Force, and the California Highway Patrol. The effort was part of an Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces operation.

Other members of the organization that were sentenced included Roberto Aguilar Navarro (11 years 3 months in prison), Jorge Vega-Macias (4 years in prison), Ivan Alcaraz (4 years in prison), Edwin Arambulo (4 years in prison), Leonel Villa Lopez (3 years and 10 months in prison), and Victor Hernandez-Sosa (2 years in prison).

Recommended Stories

  • The Unintended Consequences of Self-Driving Cars

    Here is an overview of some unintended consequences of the driverless car revolution and where things might go.

  • No Injuries Reported After Two Small Airplanes Collide Midair Above Denver

    One of the aircrafts involved was carrying only a pilot, while the second plane had a pilot and one passenger onboard

  • Saturday morning UK news briefing: Today's top headlines from The Telegraph

    Welcome to your early-morning news briefing from The Telegraph - a round-up of the top stories we are covering on Saturday. To receive twice-daily briefings by email, sign up to our Front Page newsletter for free. 1. Boris Johnson: Indian variant poses real risk of disruption to our plans Boris Johnson on Friday warned that the Indian variant could “seriously disrupt” plans to lift the final Covid restrictions on June 21. The Prime Minister said he must “level with” the public about the threat posed by the new strain and said “hard choices” about the route out of lockdown could lie ahead. Read the full story. 2. Prince Harry’s broadside leaves senior royals bemused over his ‘woeful lack of compassion' The Duke of Sussex’s broadside about the Prince of Wales has left senior royals bemused over his “woeful lack of compassion” for his own family, The Telegraph understands. All three royal households were seemingly left reeling on Friday by the Duke’s suggestion that he had been failed not only by his own father but through association, by the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh too. Read the full story. 3. Oxford University decolonising inch by inch, with imperial measurements the next target Oxford University has suggested imperial measurements should be "decolonised" over links to the British Empire. The mile, inch, yard, pound and ounce are “tied deeply to the idea of the Empire” and their presence in the curriculum could change, decolonising plans by Oxford’s maths, physics and life sciences faculty suggest. Read the full story. 4. Offer of face-to-face appointments ‘cannot happen overnight’, GPs warn patients GPs have rejected NHS instructions to immediately offer every patient a face-to-face appointment, warning the move “cannot happen overnight”. The British Medical Association (BMA) on Friday called on health chiefs to show “honesty” with the public about longer waiting times due to the effects of social distancing on patient flow in surgeries. Read the full story. 5. Edwin Poots vows to 'undermine' Northern Ireland protocol after being elected DUP leader The Democratic Unionist Party’s has elected a new leader who vowed to “systematically undermine and strip away all aspects” of the Northern Ireland protocol. Edwin Poots, the Stormont Agriculture Minister, beat the DUP’s Westminster leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson by just 19 votes to 17 at Friday’s election. Read the full story. Stay up-to-date with breaking news and the latest politics from The Telegraph throughout the day.

  • The Latest: India reports drop in cases in Delhi, Mumbai

    India's two biggest cities have reported a drop in daily infections but the government is warning that the devastating surge is spreading in rural areas, where nearly two-thirds of India's 1.4 billion people live. India reported 326,098 new confirmed cases and 3,890 deaths in the past 24 hours, though experts say both figures are an undercount. Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday warned people to take extra precautions as the virus was spreading fast in rural areas.

  • Australia carries out first repatriation flight from India after travel ban

    Australia carried out its first repatriation flight from India after temporarily banning all travel from the COVID-ravaged country last month, the government said, with 80 passengers arriving in Darwin on Saturday from New Delhi. Passengers had to show two negative COVID-19 tests before boarding the government-backed Qantas flight and were taken upon arrival to a converted mining camp in Howard Springs in the Northern Territory for a two-week quarantine. The Australian government came under fire for temporarily barring all travel to and from India last month, a policy that drew heavy criticism from lawmakers, expatriates and the Indian diaspora.

  • Tree trimmer charged over killings that left 3 dead in California

    A tree trimmer in rural Northern California has been charged in throat-slashing serial killings that left three people dead, prosecutors announced Thursday.

  • China lands its Zhurong rover on Mars

    The six-wheeled robot has made the hazardous descent to the surface of the Red Planet, China announces.

  • 8 affordable gaming chair deals that will make you more comfortable

    The best gaming chair deals to shop right now include some of our top favorites from brands such as Secretlab and more—get the scoop.

  • A TikToker discovered a hidden staircase leading to a secret basement in their house

    Ripped-up posters cover the walls of the hidden basement, and some TikToker users said they were thoroughly creeped out in the comments section.

  • Washington mayor seen in profane shirt at Costco reacts to criticism: ‘I had no idea’

    “Your words do not represent our community.”

  • Dave Bautista says his 'Blade Runner 2049' performance finally made Hollywood 'see past my physicality'

    "I want to be a better actor. I want to do some drama. People would kind of giggle at me," Bautista said before landing the 'Blade Runner' role.

  • IRA killers behind deaths of 500 UK soldiers escaped justice despite veterans facing ‘witch hunt’

    The terrorists behind the killings of more than 500 British soldiers during the Troubles have escaped justice, an analysis of historic murders shows, fueling anger over the continued pursuit of veterans through the courts. A trawl of reported deaths of troops both in Northern Ireland and on the mainland shows that authorities failed to catch or else prosecute the killers in the vast majority of cases. In total, according to The Telegraph’s analysis, the murders of 516 soldiers went unpunished. Police and prosecutors secured convictions in just 71 cases, while in an additional five killings, the convictions were subsequently overturned on appeal. Veterans have repeatedly complained that they are being unfairly pursued through the courts for deaths as long as half a century ago, while terrorist suspects are no longer under scrutiny. Lawyers and politicians have argued that soldiers are currently disproportionately much more likely to face prosecution, not least because the Ministry of Defence (MoD) kept paperwork for all shootings committed by troops sent to Northern Ireland to keep the peace. Last week, two soldiers - known only as Soldier A and Soldier C - walked free from court after they were acquitted of the murder of Joe McCann, an Official IRA commander, who was shot and killed in 1971. Theirs was the first so-called ‘legacy’ trial, although others are in the pipeline.

  • Someone in Rhode Island bought land using Dogecoin

    It's the meme that just won't go away (but will go "to the moon," apparently). A Rhode Island man sold a vacant lot in Providence for 150,000 Dogecoin (or about $50,000 at the time), in what is believed to be the first real estate deal brokered using the meme-inspired cryptocurrency, local TV station WJAR reported Thursday. "He said, 'I think it would be really cool if we could only sell my lot using Dogecoin,'" realtor Kyle Seyboth said of the unnamed seller. Now, the sale has Seyboth's "phone ringing from people who want to do the same thing," even if fluctuating prices make it impossible to know whether the buyer or the seller will come out on top. Dogecoin first began as a joke, in the wake of 2013's popular Doge meme. But after recent endorsements from Elon Musk and a subreddit of online investors, the digital currency has seen quite the meteoric rise in value. Prices dropped after Musk's May 8 appearance on Saturday Night Live, and again when the SpaceX CEO announced Tesla would stop accepting "Bitcoin as payment," but still it remains the "fourth-largest crypto by market value on CoinMarketCap," per CNBC. As of Friday morning, Dogecoin was up 39.4 percent after crypto exchange platform Coinbase announced it would officially list the coin, reports CNBC. More stories from theweek.comThere's growing speculation that Meghan Markle and Prince Harry will name their daughter 'Philippa'Republicans' dishonest war against 'critical race theory'The Republican theory of unemployment is classic Marx

  • Elon Musk says he's working with Dogecoin developers to make the cryptocurrency more efficient

    Tesla stopped accepting bitcoin as payment for its cars this week, citing the environmental cost of the cryptocurrency's computer mining network.

  • China has landed a spacecraft on Mars for the first time, delivering a water-hunting rover to the red planet

    The Zhurong rover is almost ready to start scanning Mars' volcanic-rock fields for hidden water ice. Such reserves could help future Mars astronauts.

  • A man accused of storming the Capitol with a giant Confederate flag will get to go on a family road trip while awaiting trial

    Kevin Seefried was approved to take his scheduled family trip to Salvo, North Carolina, on May 15, court documents show.

  • CVS worker forged COVID vaccine cards so kids could go to school in New York, cops say

    Police said the man told them, “I sell the cards to kids, so they can go to school.”

  • Biden sets a Tuesday deadline for the GOP to bring him an infrastructure counterproposal

    After a week of bipartisan meetings, Biden wants the GOP to expand on their $568 billion infrastructure counterproposal, and he wants to see it soon.

  • Seth Rogen says he and Jason Segel left their '8 Mile' audition in tears after making each other laugh

    The comic went out for the role of Cheddar and had to bring Jason Segel along because the casting director refused to read the lines.

  • Desperate Gazans flee Israeli bombardment in cars and on carts

    BEIT LAHIYA/GAZA CITY, Gaza (Reuters) -After days of heavy Israeli airstrikes, and then intensifying artillery fire, some terrified residents of north Gaza are not waiting to see if there is a repeat of 2014, when a ground assault followed. Under heavy shelling on Thursday night, Rewaa Marouf grabbed her children and fled the town of Beit Lahiya, close to Gaza's northern border with Israel. The U.N. refugee agency said hundreds of people had fled to U.N.-run schools in Gaza for shelter on Thursday, particularly in the north, and it was taking steps to make sure the sites were organised to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.