(Grand Rapids, MI) - Justice is being handed down in connection with a human drug pipeline extending from Mexico through La Porte County to New Buffalo.
Adrian Romero Antunez, 35, of Chicago, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court at Grand Rapids to conspiracy to distribute five kilograms or more of cocaine.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Michigan announced the decision on Tuesday. According to federal authorities, Antunez was the last of eight defendants pleading guilty to their involvement in a transnational and interstate cocaine ring broken up last year.
Shipments of cocaine from Mexico were delivered to Chicago and then supplied to Ivan Huerta Hernandez of New Buffalo. Authorities said Huerta Hernandez, 33, of 17813 Behner Road, distributed the cocaine to Western Michigan and Northern Indiana dealers.
After entering a plea agreement recently, Huerta Hernandez is scheduled for sentencing on July 21. He’s looking at possible prison time and the potential of having his 2004 Porsche Cayenne, 1969 Ford Mustang, along with other cars seized because it appears they were purchased with drug proceeds.
According to the FBI complaint, Huerta Hernandez drove to places like Benton Harbor to sell cocaine to customers and collect on debts they owed on previous buys.
The ring started unraveling from talks in Spanish and English between Hernandez and his alleged customers on cell phones and text messages being monitored under a court order for two months, the FBI complaint revealed.
- Juan Martinez Camarillo, 37, of Michigan City, has already been sentenced to 57 months.
- Santiago Cardenas, 41, also of Michigan City, is serving one year on probation.
- Henry Nichols, 41, of Greenville, South Carolina, was given a 36-month prison sentence.
- Antunez, along with Donald Rogers, 62, of New Buffalo; Manuel Eudave, 54, of LaPorte and Marcus Johnson, 41, of Benton Harbor, are awaiting sentencing.
According to authorities, investigators confiscated over 1.5 kilograms of cocaine, roughly $100,000 in cash, and six vehicles linked to cocaine trafficking when arrests started being made in November.
