Defendant who trafficked drugs while absconding from federal drug trafficking sentence, gets additional five years in prison

Seattle –A citizen of Mexico who resided in Renton, Washington before being sent to the Federal Correctional Institution Lompoc, California for drug trafficking, was sentenced today to an additional five years in prison for a second drug trafficking conviction, announced Acting U.S. Attorney Teal Luthy Miller. Humberto Lopez Rodriguez, 31, was previously sentenced to five years in prison. He failed to report to federal prison and was arrested in December 2023 with 13 kilos of cocaine and a loaded gun in a vehicle driving to Washington from California. At the sentencing hearing U.S. District Judge Tana Lin said the sentence should run consecutively.  “You committed this crime after you failed to surrender to corrections…. You’ll be deported after serving your sentence and the American Dream is dead for you.”

“This defendant continued to deal drugs while on pretrial release and later was arrested in a car with a drug load when he should have been serving his federal sentence,” said Acting U.S. Attorney Miller. “Such conduct – ignoring our laws and criminal justice system – appropriately results in additional prison time.”

Lopez Rodriguez was charged in connection with a lengthy investigation of drug traffickers with ties to Mexico and Colombia. In June 2024 law enforcement teams from the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Seattle Police Department and IRS Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI) executed 24 search or arrest warrants. At that time Lopez Rodriguez was already in prison having been arrested on a drug run six months earlier.

Over the course of the investigation, law enforcement seized 84,000 fentanyl pills, more than a kilogram of fentanyl powder, 32 kilograms of cocaine, 15 kilograms of methamphetamine nearly three kilograms of heroin, 18 firearms and $71,000 in drug proceeds.

Five of the 16 defendants charged in this drug trafficking investigation have now pleaded guilty: Ramon Duarte Garcia, 38, a citizen of Mexico residing in Kent, Washington was sentenced in May 2025 to ten years in prison; Curtis McDaniel, 56, a U.S. citizen residing in Tukwila, Washington was sentenced to five years in prison. Jose Luis Villafañe Osorio, 36, a citizen of Colombia, residing in Plainfield, New Jersey, has pleaded guilty and is scheduled for sentencing on August 13, 2025; and Manuel Garcia Hernandez, 39, a citizen of Mexico, residing in Renton, Washington has pleaded guilty and is scheduled for sentencing on September 9, 2025.

In asking for a six-year prison sentence for Lopez Rodriguez, prosecutors wrote to the court with the latest figures on fatal overdoses in our area. “Indeed, drug overdoses resulted in 1,044 deaths in King County in 2024. Through not quite seven months of 2025, there have been 541 confirmed overdose deaths, with another 47 suspected overdose deaths. Though fentanyl gets the lion’s share of attention with respect to overdose deaths—and rightly so―cocaine was the third most common drug involved in overdose deaths in King County in 2024. Specifically, cocaine was involved in 26% of overdose deaths―often in combination with fentanyl.”

This case is part of Operation Take Back America, a nationwide initiative that marshals the full resources of the Justice Department to repel the invasion of illegal immigration, achieve the total elimination of cartels and transnational criminal organizations (TCOs), and protect our communities from the perpetrators of violent crime. Operation Take Back America streamlines efforts and resources from the Department’s Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces (OCDETF) and Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN).

The investigation is being led by the DEA and Seattle Police Department. Additional assistance was provided by Renton Police Department, Centralia Police Department, Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), the Department of Housing and Urban Development Office of the Inspector General (HUD OIG), Washington State Patrol, Pierce County and Valley SWAT teams.

The Colombian National Police (CNP) and Colombian Prosecutor’s Office (Fiscalia General) partnered with U.S. law enforcement on this investigation. The Justice Department’s Narcotic and Dangerous Drug Section’s Office of the Judicial Attaché in Bogotá provided critical assistance.

The cases from this investigation are being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys Joe Silvio and C. Andrew Colasurdo in the Western District of Washington.