Tampa, Florida - United States Attorney A. Lee Bentley, III announces that Edgar Yanez-Gutierrez (31, Nayarit, Mexico) today pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit money laundering offenses and conspiring to distribute cocaine, methamphetamine, and marijuana. Yanez-Gutierrez faces a maximum term of 20 years’ imprisonment on the money laundering conspiracy charge, and a mandatory minimum term of 10 years’ imprisonment, up to life, on the drug trafficking conspiracy charge. A sentencing date has not yet been set.
According to the court documents, Yanez-Gutierrez’s plea is the latest in an investigation that has netted 28 convictions in the Middle District of Florida, for drug trafficking, money laundering, and firearms offenses, with sentences ranging from 4, up to 35 years’, imprisonment. The defendants were part of a large-scale drug trafficking organization that shipped cocaine, methamphetamine, and marijuana from California to drug distribution and money laundering cells throughout the United States, including Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Alabama, and Arkansas. Yanez-Gutierrez fled from California to Mexico in 2011, but was later arrested and extradited to the United States in December 2015.
The case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Christopher F. Murray. It was investigated by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations, with assistance from other federal, state, and local agencies as part of an Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF) investigation. The principal mission of the OCDETF program is to identify, disrupt, and dismantle the most serious drug trafficking and money laundering organizations, and those primarily responsible for the nation’s drug supply The Office of International Affairs, Department of Justice, assisted with Yanez-Gutierrez’s extradition to the United States.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the United States Attorneys
