In a hammer blow against a major drug ring, four men with alleged connections to a transnational criminal organization face federal charges after being busted with a gargantuan 370 gallons of liquid heroin. The suspects, caught by law enforcement after meticulous surveillance and checks, now face a severe reckoning with justice.
Marco Antonio Magallon, 44; Luis Deleon Woodward, 26; and Jorge Luis Amador, 25, all from Yakima, Washington, along with Santos Alisael Aguilar Maya, 32, of no fixed address, have been charged with conspiracy to distribute and possess with the intent to distribute heroin. Late on January 24 and into the wee hours of January 25, driving a rented moving truck, Amador and a red pickup kept company, were first spied by eagle-eyed investigators making their way west on Interstate 84 near Bonneville, Oregon, culminating in a quiet smuggling attempt that went south.
A motel housed the culprits in Tigard, Oregon, and became the stage for the unraveling of their plan. A seemingly inconspicuous stop in a commercial parking lot in Beaverton, Oregon, was part of their travel, but little did they know, that eyes followed their every move. The feds swooped in on January 25, warrants in hand, and uncovered their payload—eight 55-gallon barrels brimming with the illegal liquid—inside the moving truck parked with intent at the motel, described in detail by a Justice Department release.
Adding to the gravity of the arrests, two loaded handguns lying beside the bed were discovered inside the defendants’ motel room. The liquid heroin, with a staggering weight of approximately 1.4 metric tons, was carted off to the Washington County Sheriff’s Office narcotics room for the evidence. Laboratory tests laid bare the truth of the substance, which was indeed liquid heroin according to the same Justice Department release.
The bust is a feather in the cap for Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), WCSO, and the Westside Interagency Narcotics Team (WIN). Pouring their skills collectively into the fight against drugs, this HIDTA task force leverages expertise across various agencies. It is a wired mesh of law enforcement from the Washington County Sheriff’s Office, Beaverton and Hillsboro Police Departments, DEA, and FBI, and inclusive of the Oregon National Guard Counter Drug Program and HSI. This case is at the hands of the U.S. Attorney for the District of Oregon, Scott M. Kerin.
