Rebecca C. Lutzko United States Attorney for the Northern District of Ohio | U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Ohio
A Mexican national, Dionicio Galindo-Salinas, has been sentenced to more than 19 years in prison for his involvement in a cocaine trafficking operation that moved over 100 pounds of the drug from Texas to Ohio. U.S. District Judge John R. Adams handed down the 235-month sentence on July 28, 2025, after Galindo-Salinas pleaded guilty in April to conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute cocaine.
Court records show that Galindo-Salinas had previously been removed from the United States before returning and supplying cocaine to Cleveland-area traffickers. Earl King, a co-conspirator from Cleveland, regularly traveled over 1,600 miles to the US-Mexico border where he purchased large quantities of cocaine from Galindo-Salinas. The drugs were then shipped to Cleveland through a UPS-Staples store located in Brownsville, Texas. Investigators found evidence that King had made these trips since around 2020 and had acquired at least 47 kilograms of cocaine during the conspiracy period. The lead federal investigator testified that this amount of cocaine would have had an estimated street value exceeding $2 million in the Cleveland area at that time.
“Anyone who thinks they can use Northern Ohio as a marketplace to peddle illegal drugs on behalf of transnational criminal organizations will face consequences,” said U.S. Attorney David M. Toepfer for the Northern District of Ohio. “We are fully committed to protecting the public by aggressively enforcing federal laws to keep our communities safe.”
“ICE HSI will continue to investigate, disrupt and dismantle cross border drug trafficking organizations that seek to poison our communities,” said ICE HSI Detroit acting Special Agent in Charge Jared Murphey. “I’m proud of the agents, prosecutors and law enforcement partners who relentlessly pursued justice in this case in order to safeguard the communities where they live and work.”
Galindo-Salinas is one of four defendants convicted and sentenced as part of this investigation. Earl King was previously given a 15-year sentence after admitting guilt for his role in the scheme. Curtis Anderson was convicted by jury trial and received a sentence of 25 years for obtaining cocaine and distributing it locally. Donnell Gochett, another co-conspirator from Cleveland who provided addresses for shipping parcels containing cocaine, was sentenced earlier to more than eight years following his guilty plea.
The investigation involved Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), with support from both the DEA’s Cleveland Field Office and the Cleveland Division of Police.
Assistant U.S. Attorneys James P. Lewis and Yasmine Makridis prosecuted this case on behalf of the Northern District of Ohio.
