A convicted drug trafficker was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison for his role in “flooding the Atlanta area with $1.75 million of methamphetamine per week,” officials said Friday.
U.S. Attorney Byung J. Pak said Victor Aguirre-Rodriguez hid on the other end of a cellphone in Mexico while he orchestrated the flow of hundreds of kilos of methamphetamine into Atlanta — as much as 100 kilograms per week.
A drug sting in a Gwinnett County park ultimately dismantled the operation several years ago.
According to prosecutors, Aguirre-Rodriguez was a member of a drug trafficking organization in Mexico that was already raking in cash by trafficking methamphetamine into metro Atlanta. The organization wanted to branch out to establish a large-scale cocaine distribution chain, and Aguirre-Rodriguez began negotiating on behalf of the organization with Colombian cocaine suppliers.
Prosecutors said Aguirre-Rodriguez, 41, of Nayarit, Mexico, brokered a deal to sell methamphetamine to the Colombian cocaine suppliers. They set up a drop-off location at Best Friend Park in Gwinnett County to exchange the drugs for cash.
He didn’t know the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration had infiltrated the Colombian cocaine suppliers, a spokesman with Pak’s office said.
“DEA agents within the Colombian group agreed to purchase the methamphetamine,” the spokesman said. “Aguirre-Rodriguez and DEA agents set up an initial deal for 10 kilograms of methamphetamine in exchange for $175,000.”
The agents agreed to drop off a car at the park, where a member of the Mexican drug organization would pick it up to fill it with the drugs, according to prosecutors. But when Aguirre-Rodriguez’s man returned with the drug-laden car, Georgia State troopers intercepted it and confiscated the meth.
DEA agents then arrested the driver, Joaquin Tirado, now 29, and tracked Nolver Noel Molina-Gonzalez, 34, to a drug stash house in Norcross. An additional seven kilograms of methamphetamine were seized during a search warrant and Molina-Gonzalez, who was guarding the house, was arrested.
A third drug organization member, Jose Luis Guillen-Torres, 30, was also arrested on his way to collect payment.
Aguirre-Rodriguez was not arrested until three years later, when authorities picked him up in Chicago on cocaine charges.
He was convicted by a federal jury of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute and possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine in February. When he gets out of prison, he will be under 10 years of supervised release.
“These high-level traffickers are not protected by technology or their distance from Atlanta when they send poison into our community,” Pak said.
With Aguirre-Rodriguez’s sentence, the case against all four men is closed.
In 2013, U.S. District Judge Thomas W. Thrash Jr. sentenced Guillen-Torres to 24 years and four months in prison followed by five years of supervised release. Tirado was sentenced to 15 years in prison followed by 10 years of supervised release. And Molina-Gonzalez got eight years and one month in prison followed by five years of supervised release.
The prosecution was brought as a part of the Department of Justice’s Organized Crime and Drug Enforcement Task Force program, a joint operation between local, state and federal agencies.
“The impact of taking down these traffickers is immense,” said Atlanta police Chief Erika Shields. “We’re glad our joint efforts led to shutting down this high-level operation that was dumping millions of dollars of methamphetamine and cocaine onto our streets. Our relationship with our federal and state partners proves once again to be vital in stopping drug traffickers and detouring others from coming to our city.”
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