Source: United States Department of Justice News
PROVIDENCE – A twice-deported Dominican national living in Providence who led a drug-trafficking organization that imported millions of doses of Mexican-sourced cocaine and fentanyl was sentenced today in U.S. District Court in Providence to fifteen years in federal prison, announced United States Attorney Zachary A. Cunha.
Eighteen kilos of fentanyl, enough to yield 9,000,000 lethal does; nearly twenty kilograms of cocaine; and one kilogram of heroin were seized as a result of a DEA Rhode Island Drug Task Force and Rhode Island State Police High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas (HIDTA) Task Force investigation into the drug trafficking activity of 47-year-old Juni Rafael Jimenez-Martinez.
The Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDEFT) investigation, dubbed “Operation Seek and Destroy,” determined that Jimenez-Martinez attempted to insulate himself from the drug trafficking operation by using trusted friends and associates to carry out much of the organization’s day-to-day business, while he oversaw and directed the importation, transportation, storage, and distribution of kilos of drugs. Jimenez-Martinez coordinated the movement of the drugs through various U.S. cities, as well as their shipment into New York City, where they were stored. At Jimenez-Martinez’s direction, the drugs were later transported elsewhere for distribution, including into Rhode Island and Massachusetts. During the course of the investigation, law enforcement seized drug shipments in St. Louis, Maryland, New Jersey, and Rhode Island.
Jimenez-Martinez, convicted of drug trafficking in 2009 in federal court in the Southern District of New York and sentenced to 65 months of incarceration, has been detained in Rhode Island since his arrest in this matter on June 6, 2019. He pleaded guilty on October 6, 2021, to conspiracy to distribute and to possess with intent to distribute cocaine; possession with intent to distribute cocaine; and being an alien who reentered the United States illegally after having been removed.
Jimenez-Martinez was sentenced today by U.S. District Court Chief Judge William E. Smith to 180 months of incarceration to be followed by ten years of federal supervised release.
The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Paul F. Daly, Jr.
United States Attorney Cunha thanks the Massachusetts State Police; DEA Strike Force in Watertown, MA; DEA Annandale HIDTA Group in VA; and the DEA Westchester, NY, Resident Office for their assistance in this investigation.
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