FARGO — Court documents related to a newly filed case in U.S. District Court in North Dakota are shining a light on how investigators discovered a major drug trafficking operation being run by a Mexican cartel member out of a federal prison in Colorado which led to the shipment of large quantities of fentanyl, heroin and other illegal substances to North Dakota and several other states.
A recently unsealed search warrant shows that Homeland Security investigators started looking into the drug trafficking operation last spring.
A UPS package containing 15,000 fentanyl pills was intercepted by federal agents in Fargo on June 16, 2023. Subscriber information obtained by grand jury subpoena for a phone number connected to the package led investigators to 26-year-old Jesus Celestin-Ortega, who was at the time serving a 15-year sentence at the Federal Correctional Institution, or FCI, in Florence, Colorado.
Court documents identify Celestin-Ortega, also known as Flaco, as a Mexican cartel member and member of the Mexican prison gang Paisa. He was arrested in Colorado in the summer of 2019 on federal drug and firearm charges.
Investigators said Celestin-Ortega was communicating directly with people outside FCI Florence, always during scheduled lockdown hours, by text, phone calls and Facebook messenger, and arranging for deliveries of fentanyl, meth and heroin from Mexico to people in North Dakota and several states including Minnesota, California, Colorado, Georgia, Missouri, Texas and Arizona.
Seven people from various parts of the country including Minnesota, Arizona, Texas and Colorado have been indicted on charges related to the operation. While the indictments are still sealed because at least one suspect in the case has not yet been arrested, several of the co-defendants have made court appearances in Fargo, including Celestin-Ortega on April 26.
Celestin-Ortega is charged with four crimes in the case, including conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute and the distribution of controlled substances, conspiracy to import controlled substances into the United States from Mexico, money laundering and continuing criminal enterprise for his leadership role in the trafficking conspiracy.
All other co-defendants have also been charged with the first count of conspiracy to distribute, and at least two have been charged with the second and third counts of conspiracy to import and money laundering. Their exact roles in the conspiracy have not yet been described in court documents or hearings.
The conspiracy charges carry ten-year mandatory minimum prison sentences with a maximum penalty of life in prison and up to a $10 million fine.
The indictment says the operation started in January of 2022. It accuses the co-defendants of helping to facilitate shipments of fentanyl and meth to Fargo in June and December of last year, as well as the delivery of 1kg of heroin to Grand Forks in February of this year
All of the indicted co-conspirators who have appeared have entered not-guilty pleas.