New Drug Kingpin Declared, Customs Broker Goes to Jail in Illegal Ephedrine Import Scheme
A Mexican drug trafficking organization has been declared a drug kingpin, and a San Diego customs broker will spend eight years in prison, in connection with a scheme to illegally import and distribute ephedrine for use in making methamphetamine, said Immigrations and Customs Enforcement. The customs broker, Antonio Gonzalez of San Diego and Tijuana, Mexico, also forfeited most of the $4 million seized in the investigation. Gonzalez was sentenced in 2011.
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In 2009, investigators discovered a scheme involving Indian chemical producers, an Oregon importer and Gonzalez, a customs broker. Fabian Samuel of India was the executive director and son of the founder of an India-based company named Indfrag, Ltd., which produced extract products, some containing ephedrine, the main precursor chemical needed to make the controlled substance methamphetamine, according to a Justice Department release. The group smuggled the ephedrine products into the U.S. mislabeled as “green tea extract” and other false names. The ephedrine was further smuggled into Mexico where it was to be made into methamphetamine by Mexican drug trafficking organizations, DOJ said.
Between 2007 and 2009, the group illegally imported 50 shipments of ephedrine-based products in 850 barrels for an estimated total of 7,800 kilograms, said ICE. Federal officials conservatively estimated this ephedrine could produce $20 million worth of methamphetamine.
Luis Gerardo Ibarra Cardona, the leader of the Mexican supply network, is among the individuals designated under the Kingpin Act by the Treasury Department, ICE said. He joins his mother, father, uncle and brother along with three companies on the Specially Designated National list. Together they are responsible for operating a smuggling network that has supplied several tons of methamphetamine precursor materials to the Sinaloa Cartel, it said.
ICE press release is here.
DOJ press release from September detailing Samuel’s sentencing is here.