29 charged with drug trafficking in San Diego amid Treasury Dept. sanctions
Three indictments were unsealed in San Diego today charging 29 people with drug trafficking offenses on the same day the U.S. Treasury Department announced sanctions against nine of those defendants for their alleged ties to a major Mexican drug trafficking organization.
The indictments unsealed in San Diego were announced along with five other indictments unsealed across the country charging 60 defendants total with crimes such as the trafficking of heroin, methamphetamine, cocaine, fentanyl and marijuana.
"These indictments have neutralized dozens of alleged maritime traffickers and prevented addictive, harmful, and increasingly often deadly drugs from reaching American shores and streets,'' said San Diego U.S. Attorney Tara McGrath. "Cases like this are critical for disrupting, disabling, and dismantling the sinister and deadly operations of foreign drug trafficking organizations in the United States.''
On Wednesday, Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen announced a series of sanctions against alleged drug traffickers while in Mexico City, where she traveled to discuss fentanyl trafficking countermeasures with members of the Mexican government and officials in the private sector.
The sanctions target members and associates of the Beltran Leyva Organization, described as "one of the most powerful drug trafficking organizations in the world'' and one of the largest suppliers of cocaine and fentanyl into the United States.
One of the defendants charged in San Diego, Oscar Manuel Gastelum Iribe, is described by the Treasury Department as part of BLO's leadership and is allegedly responsible for overseeing the trafficking of drugs from Colombia, Ecuador, Costa Rica, Honduras, and Guatemala into Mexico for eventual transportation into the U.S. Iribe is also being charged in the District of Columbia and Illinois.
Two other defendants, Juan Pablo Bastidas Erenas and Jose de Jesus Estrada Gutierrez, allegedly invested in a shipment of drugs that broke records when the drugs were discovered in 2021 at the Otay Mesa Port of Entry.
Officials said the amount of methamphetamine and fentanyl set records that year for the largest amounts of each drug seized throughout the entire United States, earning the haul the nickname "Methzilla" by some members of law enforcement.
The men allegedly trafficked drugs on behalf of Gastelum Iribe, according to the Treasury Department.
