(Press Release) All 11 people indicted in a federal drug trafficking case on Tuesday are in custody after 34-year-old Ricardo Garcia Lopez was arrested Wednesday night in Idaho Falls, Idaho. Arrested with Garcia was 36-year-old Jenny Flores-Leal on state charges of harboring a fugitive.
The federal defendants are charged with conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine. Arraignments are scheduled to begin at 1:30 p.m. Thursday in United States District Court in Pocatello.
Garcia is charged with co-defendants 25-year-old Samuel Nevarez-Ayon and 24-year-old Fabiola Esmerelda Marin-Castro of Rexburg, Idaho; 40-year-old Guadalupe Meraz of Madera, California; 25-year-old Ana Rosa Valdez-Ceja, 27-year-old Juan Ortiz, Jr., and 27-year-old Antonio Javier Mendoza of Shelly, Idaho; 30-year-old Isidoro David Herrera, 24-year-old Daniel Quiroz, 29-year-old Everado Tapia Torres, Jr., 34-year-old Ricardo Garcia Lopez, and 28-year-old Nicolas Levi Olsen of Idaho Falls, Idaho.
Federal drug trafficking charges are punishable by up to 10 years in prison, a fine up to $8 million, and a minimum term of five years of supervised release.
The charges are the result of a nine-month investigation by the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF), including the Idaho State Police, Bonneville County Sheriff’s Office, Idaho Falls Police Department, Madison County Sheriff’s Office, Rexburg Police Department, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), Internal Revenue Service-Criminal Investigations, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), Fremont County Sheriff’s Office, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
The OCDETF program is a federal multi-agency, multi-jurisdictional task force that supplies supplemental federal funding to federal and state agencies involved in the identification, investigation, and prosecution of major drug trafficking organizations.
An indictment is a means of charging a person with criminal activity. It is not evidence. The person is presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.
TXT 24
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