Rigby Men Plead Guilty to Possession with Intent to Distribute Methamphetamine

POCATELLO – Carlos Beltran-Vega, 56, and Francisco Vega, 40, both of Rigby, Idaho, pleaded guilty today to possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine, U.S. Attorney Wendy J. Olson announced.

According to the plea agreement, on February 16, 2015, law enforcement received information that the defendants had a large amount of methamphetamine in a cooler at a hotel in Idaho Falls, Idaho.  Officers conducted surveillance on the hotel room and observed the defendants exit the hotel room and get into a vehicle.  The two men had possession of a red cooler when they went from the hotel room into the vehicle.  A short time later the vehicle was stopped, and a canine alerted to the presence of drugs in the cooler, where methamphetamine was found.  A subsequent search of the hotel room revealed a larger amount of methamphetamine. 

The charge is punishable by up to twenty years imprisonment, a term of supervised release of at least three years, and a maximum fine of $1,000,000. 

Sentencing is scheduled for November 23, 2015, in Pocatello before Chief United States District Judge B. Lynn Winmill.

The case is the result of a joint investigation of the Organized Crime and Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF), which included the cooperative law enforcement efforts of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), Idaho Falls Police Department, and Bonneville County Sheriff’s Department, and Nampa Police Department.  Other federal agencies participating in the OCEDTF program include the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and U.S. Marshals Service.  The OCDETF program is a federal, multi-agency, multi-jurisdictional task force that supplies supplemental federal funding to federal and state agencies involved in the identification, investigation, and prosecution of major drug trafficking organizations.