Tacoma men tied to interstate drug ring that dealt in fentanyl and violence, records show
Federal prosecutors say two Tacoma men were involved in a drug ring tied to the shooting of a Lakewood man in September, who allegedly was targeted because they believed he was an informant.
The group is accused of conspiracy to distribute more than 50,000 fentanyl pills and other drugs to Eastern Washington.
The two Tacoma men are named alongside three others accused of being part of a drug ring trafficking fentanyl, cocaine, methamphetamine, LSD and cannabis.
Prosecutors said drugs sourced from the men were connected to the overdose death of a 15-year-old in Idaho. Details of the months-long investigation were revealed in a probable cause affidavit filed Oct. 15 for another man involved in the group, Matthew Gudino-Pena.
Gudino-Pena is charged with conspiracy to distribute 400 grams or more of fentanyl. It’s unclear whether charges are being brought against the men from Tacoma. In an email Tuesday, Assistant U.S. Attorney for Eastern Washington David Herzog said the criminal complaint filed against Gudino-Pena is the only public statement the office can make. The News Tribune generally does not name suspects until they are formally charged with a crime.
The criminal complaint shows the two men were arrested in Tucson, Arizona days apart, Oct. 13 and 15, while on the run from law enforcement.
Investigators said they learned of the group’s alleged drug trafficking after a high school freshman in Idaho died of a fentanyl overdose. After the teen’s death in May and a fatal shooting from a drug deal gone bad, an unnamed confidential source identified two men from Tacoma as the source of the drugs coming into Spokane.
The confidential source told investigators the men had been selling drugs, guns, modifications for firearms and designer clothes out of a storage unit in Tacoma. According to court documents, videos show the men advertising drugs and guns on Snapchat. They allegedly traveled between Tacoma and Spokane to deliver pills and also used the U.S. Postal Service to mail them.
Authorities used geolocation for the men’s phones obtained through search warrants and information from the confidential source — who remained in contact with them — to track the men as they traveled between Washington, California, Arizona and North Carolina while allegedly trafficking drugs.
Shooting in Lakewood
In September, the two men traveled from North Carolina to Tucson, Arizona to meet with a Mexican source in the desert, according to the probable cause document. There, investigators said they bought 10,000 pills.
One of the men returned to Tacoma after several days, but the other remained in Arizona to recover after he was apparently assaulted and robbed near the Mexican border by someone the man believed was associated with the Mexican cartel.
Later that month, the two men continued to move thousands of pills from Tacoma to Spokane, according to the probable cause document. Through the confidential source working with law enforcement, a U.S. Postal Service inspector was able to intercept a shipment of about 2,000 pills suspected to be laced with fentanyl.
On Sept. 25, one of the men told the confidential source that the other Tacoma man and another person in their group had shot a man in Lakewood who they believed was informing on them to law enforcement, according to the probable cause document.
Lakewood Police told the DEA that around midnight on Sept. 24, two men got out of a car near a recording studio and fired more than 30 gunshots toward a man. The man shot suffered spinal damage, and according to hospital staff, he will likely be paralyzed from the waist down.
Search warrants executed in Eatonville, Tacoma
Agents from the DEA executed search warrants Sept. 30 at the two men’s residence in Eatonville and the storage units in Tacoma they had allegedly been operating out of.
The DEA seized more pills suspected to be laced with fentanyl, guns and thousands of dollars of merchandise from the storage units, which investigators believe the men purchased with drug money.
Soon after, law enforcement lost track of the men’s location. The confidential source told investigators the men had gotten rid of their phones and left the area. It wasn’t until the men asked the source to ship them new phones to an address in Arizona that agents were able to locate them again.
DEA agents learned the Tacoma men and another person involved in the group were hiding out in student apartments in Tucson. One of the men was arrested while agents executed a search warrant there Oct. 13. The other was arrested at a nearby hotel two days later.
