A dozen Lubbock drug traffickers have been sentenced to a combined 106 years in federal prison, announced Acting U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas Chad E. Meacham.
The defendants were arrested during the Drug Enforcement Administration’s Operation Los Perros De Nieve (“Operation Snow Dogs”), which also resulted in the seizure of multiple kilograms of cocaine, more than a dozen firearms, and roughly $80,000 cash from drug dealers in Lubbock.
The last of 12 in-custody defendants, Ruben Alejandro Rodriguez-Parada, was sentenced yesterday to almost four years in federal prison. A 13th charged defendant remains a fugitive.
According to court documents, DEA agents used a confidential informant to buy cocaine from several defendants. They also executed search warrants at several defendants’ residences, including their vehicles, and seized five bricks of cocaine from a storage unit in Lubbock.
One defendant, Robert Bruno, admitted that he regularly worked with a cocaine source of supply in Mexico, who delivered the drug with little advance notice and then aggressively collected on his debts.
“Cocaine extracts a terrible toll, wreaking havoc on users’ bodies and brains. We are determined to dismantle the organizations that inject this drug into our communities. The sentences announced today send a message to would-be dealers in Lubbock: The penalty for cocaine distribution is serious,” said Acting U.S. Attorney Chad Meacham.
“Cocaine is not manufactured in Lubbock nor does the coca plant, from where it is derived, grow in West Texas’ fertile land. Its prevalence and distribution in the area must be deliberate and for only one purpose: greed,” said DEA Dallas Special Agent in Charge Eduardo A. Chávez, who oversees DEA operations in Lubbock. “These sentences handed down to Mr. Rodriguez-Parada, Mr. Bruno, and their co-conspirators should send a message to all violent drug trafficking organizations operating in the area that decisions based on greed could lead to more than a collective century in prison.”
Those who’ve been sentenced include:
The investigation was led by the Drug Enforcement Administration’s Dallas Field Division and the Lubbock Police Department with assistance from the Lubbock County Sheriff’s Office, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives’ Dallas Field Division, Homeland Security Investigations’ Dallas Field Office, and the Texas Department of Safety. This investigation was carried out as part of the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF) program with the coordination of the Lubbock HIDTA group and Texas Anti-Gang initiative. Assistant U.S. Attorney Sean Long is prosecuting the case.
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