The closure of a long-running case in Florida has occurred with the sentencing of Jose Miriel Morales Sanchez, age 32, from Tampa. He has received a 10-year federal prison sentence for his role in a conspiracy to distribute heroin and fentanyl, as reported by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Middle District of Florida. Morales Sanchez, according to court documents, had been involved with the operation starting no later than September 1, 2017, through August 27, 2020.
William Franqui, identified as the leader of the drug trafficking organization (DTO), developed a runner system, wherein individuals would respond to customer calls and supply heroin in $10 baggies. Arrested with Morales Sanchez, was Franqui, who has been sentenced to 14 years in prison on related charges. The runners, part of Franqui's network, included Kevin Darnell Diaz Tirado, Edgardo Colon Rosado, and Orlando Muniz Escalera, who received various prison terms in previous hearings.
The investigation, a coordinated effort among the FBI, DEA, Homeland Security Investigations, Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office, and Tampa Police Department, has tied several overdoses to the heroin and fentanyl distributed by Franqui's group. Diaz Tirado was previously sentenced to 5 years, Muniz Escalera to 10 years, and Colon Rosado to 6 years and 6 months in federal prison. Franqui's wife, Marie Rodriguez, also implicated in the scheme, was sentenced to 3 years and 4 months after pleading guilty to two counts of heroin distribution.
Morales Sanchez entered a guilty plea on March 4, accepting responsibility for the conspiracy. The case against the DTO was part of the efforts of the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces (OCDETF) program, aiming to tackle large-scale drug trafficking and money laundering operations, with Assistant United States Attorney Michael Sinacore leading the prosecution.
