OKLAHOMA CITY – A lengthy state/federal criminal investigation resulted in the indictment of 20 people in federal court here on charges of conspiracy to possess and distribute methamphetamine via a drug ring directed from Mexico and using contacts in three Oklahoma prisons, including one in Lawton.
More than 100 federal, state, and local law enforcement officers executed 15 search warrants and multiple arrest warrants throughout the Oklahoma City metro area targeting a drug trafficking organization that has been distributing methamphetamine. The announcement was issued by Acting Western District U.S. Attorney Robert J. Troester, FBI Special Agent in Charge Melissa Godbold, Oklahoma City Police Chief Wade Gourley, and IRS Criminal Investigations Acting Special Agent in Charge Mark Pearson.
The operation was the culmination of a two-year joint statewide investigation led by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Oklahoma City Police Department, the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation, and the United States Attorney’s Office.
LIQUID/CRYSTAL METH, FIREARMS, $1M CASH SEIZED BY OFFICERS
A coordinated takedown was conducted March 3-4 that resulted in the arrest of 15 defendants and the seizure of liquid meth, crystal meth, firearms, and more than $100,000 in U.S. currency. Over the course of the investigation, law enforcement officers seized a combined total of nearly 300 gallons of liquid meth, more than 750 pounds of crystal meth, 40 firearms, and more than $1,000,000 in cash, Troester said.
According to affidavits filed in support of the first criminal complaint, Oscar Hernandez Flores, alias “O,” 36, and his sister, Lucero “Lucy” Hernandez Flores, 41, both former residents of Oklahoma, allegedly have been directing the Hernandez Drug Trafficking Organization (DTO) from San Luis Potosi, Mexico, since at least January 2018.
The charging documents also allege that the Hernandez DTO is responsible for the importation, transportation, and distribution of thousands of kilograms of meth per year in the Western District of Oklahoma and elsewhere, using contacts in Oklahoma to carry out the daily operations of the drug ring.
Allegedly, the organization earns millions of dollars a year in drug proceeds, most of which is ultimately transferred back down to Mexico, either through bulk cash smuggling or through third-party wire transfers.
OTHERS INDICTED
An affidavit filed by an FBI special agent alleges that Ian Baswell, also known as Brian Moore, 46, and Terry Hammons, 36, furthered the Hernandez DTO activities through drug distribution operations from the North Fork Correctional Center in Sayre, using contraband cell phones and non-incarcerated couriers. Baswell and Hammons were cellmates at North Fork and “[ran] their drug operation through the use of contraband cellphones” and with the assistance of non-incarcerated co-conspirators “who serve as their couriers, the FBI agent alleged.
The couriers are identified in the affidavit as Thomas Pitts, Trena Roberts, Katherine Barrett, Jackie Lee, Joshua Wertz, Venoris Smith, Liberty Jordan, and Richard Jackson, a/k/a “G”. All were indicted along with Baswell and Hammons.
Charles Mansfield, a/k/a “Fame” and “Junior,” 42, and Matthew Perry, 31, a/k/a “Money Pak,” are accused in a separate indictment of using contraband cell phones to distribute drugs imported by the Hernandez DTO from the penal facilities where they are jailed. Mansfield is incarcerated art the GEO-managed Lawton Correctional Facility, and Perry is incarcerated at the Lexington Correctional Center run by the state Department of Corrections, federal officials said.
Mansfield’s criminal record includes felony convictions in three counties (Logan, Canadian and Oklahoma) for unauthorized use of a motor vehicle, leaving the scene of an accident involving an injury, recruiting a minor into a criminal street gang, acquiring proceeds from drug activity, trafficking in illegal drugs, possession of a controlled dangerous substance, driving while his license was suspended or revoked, eluding a police officer, driving under the influence of an intoxicating substance, false personation, and being a convicted felon in possession of a firearm.
Indicted along with Mansfield, Perry, Oscar and Lucero Flores were Mariano Cruz Hernandez, a/k/a “Pampers,” 36, a cousin of Oscar Hernandez Flores; Rafael Moreno, 34; Armando Martinez Rodriguez, alias “Topo Gigio” (the name of a puppet mouse on the Ed Sullivan variety show aired on CBS in 1948-71), 47; Jocelyn Martinez, a/k/a “J,” 25; and Joshua H. Ryan Jr., 43.
The complaints charge each defendant with conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute and to distribute more than 500 grams of meth. If convicted, each defendant faces a federal prison term of no less than 10 years and up to life plus a fine of up to $10 million.
Another person identified as having been “associated with the drug distribution component” of the Hernandez organization was Tomas Garcia Martinez, 38, of Oklahoma City. He was arrested in September 2020 while in possession of more than 90 pounds of methamphetamine, the FBI reported.
Martinez was indicted on a federal charge of distribution of methamphetamine. He and two other individuals are scheduled for trial on the April jury docket in the Western District Federal Court in Oklahoma City.
7TH DRUG RING RUN FROM PRISON
This marks the seventh time in a year that individuals implicated in a major drug ring operated from Oklahoma’s prison system were indicted or sentenced in federal courts in Oklahoma.
“We find a lot of cell phones” in the state prison system, Justin Wolf, director of communications and government relations for the state Department of Corrections, told the Ledger last year. “Some are barely bigger than a finger and can be easily concealed.”
Mobile phones prized by convicts are specialty devices that aren’t sold in stores, Wolf said. “They don’t need ‘smart phone’ technology. All they’re needed for is to dial out” from prison to an accomplice on the outside.
Corrections Department officers have seized more than 58,750 cell phones in the last 10 years, including 5,183 during the first 11 months of last year, Wolf said. In accordance with state law, the confiscated ’phones are sold or destroyed, he said.