He was a trusted member of West Coast drug ring. Now Tacoma man is off to prison
A U.S. District Court judge sentenced a Tacoma man to over five years in prison Tuesday for his role delivering drugs for a drug-trafficking organization, U.S. Attorney Charles Neil Floyd announced.
Rogelio Pena, 22, was one of 13 people from a drug-trafficking group indicted for the case in May 2024 following an 18-month wiretap investigation, according to the press release.
Pena peddled drugs across the Pacific Northwest and was trusted enough to hold the keys to the storage area where the group kept its supply, the release read.
He would use rental cars to transport the drugs north from Los Angeles. After authorities stopped a number of those cars, conspirators switched to bringing drugs to Seattle by bus, the release said.
Prior to the 2024 indictment, Pena was in a car stopped by law enforcement in June 2023. Authorities found 25 pounds of meth in the vehicle. Pena was heard on the wiretap after the traffic stop arranging the distribution of 20,000 fentanyl pills, the news release states.
The investigation seized approximately 81 kilograms of meth, 49 kilograms of fentanyl pills and 15 kilograms of cocaine.
“This drug trafficking organization flooded the Pacific Northwest with fentanyl, methamphetamine and cocaine,” said DEA special agent Robert Saccone. “The fentanyl alone seized in the case contained enough lethal doses to kill more than 200,000 people in Western Washington.”
In their recommendation of a 66-month sentence, prosecutors wrote that Pena and his co-conspirators contributed to the addiction of an unknown number of individuals. They highlighted that 1,340 fatal overdose deaths occurred in King County in 2023 while Pena was actively involved in drug trafficking.
“The drugs that Pena was peddling caused irreparable harm to the community in general as well as to the families whose members are addicted to controlled substances,” prosecutors said.
