OKLAHOMA CITY – A three-year investigation into another Oklahoma prison-based drug trafficking organization has resulted in 21 defendants being convicted in multiple federal cases.
This marked at least the eighth time in two years that individuals implicated in a major drug ring operated from Oklahoma’s prison system were indicted or sentenced in federal courts in Oklahoma.
Public records reflect that over the course of the investigation, federal, state, and local law enforcement identified and targeted a drug trafficking organization run by Todd Mathew Strand, 34. He is an Oklahoma Department of Corrections inmate who already was serving a 30-year state sentence for convictions in Carter and Custer counties for conspiracy to traffic in methamphetamine after former felony convictions in Colorado.
Strand, with the assistance of fellow inmate Hugo Gonzalez Jr., ran his operation from inside state prison using contraband cellphones. The pair then relied on a network of distributors and couriers on the streets to distribute methamphetamine and heroin and collect proceeds from those sales.
Additionally, Strand and his organization gathered firearms (often in exchange for drugs), with at least some of those firearms intended to be exported to Mexico. In one instance, a search of a storage facility controlled by one of Strand’s associates resulted in the confiscation of 13 assorted assault rifles, shotguns, parts, and ammunition that had been gathered for exportation to Mexico.
Crimes for which the defendants were convicted include drug distribution, drug conspiracy, money laundering, maintaining drug-involved premises, and illegal firearms possession. Strand also ordered acts of violence, including acts against his own associates, during the course of the conspiracy.
Strand was sentenced to serve 384 months (32 years) in federal prison.
His second in command, Gonzalez Jr., was sentenced to serve 264 months (22 years) in federal prison. Gonzalez, 40, has a record of numerous convictions from Oklahoma County: for murder, assault and battery on a police officer, drug possession and drug trafficking, and being a felon in possession of firearms.
Numerous other defendants with roles in the criminal enterprise, ranging from mid-level dealers and couriers to significant drug traffickers, received sentences between 192 months and 36 months.
Collectively, the 21 defendants received sentences of more than 187 years in federal prison, U.S. Attorney Robert J. Troester reported. In addition, law enforcement seized approximately 46 pounds of methamphetamine and heroin, more than 50 firearms, and $35,000 in drug proceeds, he said.
“This sprawling drug trafficking operation was primarily operated by inmates using contraband cellphones from inside state prison walls,” Troester said.
State Corrections Department personnel seized more than 28,000 contraband cellphones in Oklahoma prisons during the past five years, records reflect. In accordance with state law, confiscated phones are sold or destroyed.
“We find a lot of cellphones” in the state prison system, Justin Wolf, director of communications and government relations for the state Department of Corrections, told Southwest Ledger. “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.
“Drug trafficking on our streets and in our prisons impacts the safety and security of all of our lives,” said Eduardo A. Chavez, Special Agent in Charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration Dallas/Oklahoma. “These convictions and prison terms should send a strong message to others that drug trafficking and its related violent crimes are not welcome here. The DEA and our partners will continue to identify, disrupt, and destroy these criminal organizations.”
“The laundering of illegal drug profits is as important and essential to drug traffickers as the very distribution of their illegal drugs,” said Gerardo Gomez, Assistant Special Agent in Charge, IRS Criminal Investigation, Dallas Field Office. “Without these ill-gotten gains, the traffickers could not finance their organizations.”
“This case demonstrated just how dangerous and determined some criminals can be,” said Oklahoma City Police Chief Wade Gourley.
The investigation was spearheaded by the DEA with assistance from numerous other law enforcement partners, including the OKC, Edmond, Moore and Sallisaw police departments; the Oklahoma Highway Patrol; the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs Control; the Oklahoma County District Attorney’s Office; the Oklahoma Department of Corrections; the IRS Criminal Investigative Division; and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
Assistant U.S. Attorneys Thomas Snyder and Jason Harley prosecuted the cases.