A man charged in connection with a major Omaha drug operation changed his plea to guilty in federal court on Monday, admitting to one count of drug conspiracy and a firearms charge. Cain Tapia's remaining charges were dropped as part of the deal, and he is now scheduled to be sentenced in January.
According to KETV, Tapia entered his plea deal on Monday in a case connected to the Omaha operation, and his sentencing is set for Jan. 21, 2027. The station reports that Tapia and co-defendant Alan Torres-Guerrero were charged in an ongoing narcotics investigation, with prosecutors dropping Tapia's other remaining charges in exchange for the guilty plea.
Machine Gun Conversions Found in Investigation
Investigators found multiple machine-gun conversions during the probe, the station's report notes, devices that turn standard weapons into fully automatic firearms. Brenda Beadle, chief deputy with the Douglas County Attorney's office, described the scope of the operation in stark terms: “They've got machine guns, lots of cocaine, lots of fentanyl, and a lot of money is being exchanged.”
The Omaha investigation also reflects a broader law-enforcement concern about conversion devices. In a 2024 announcement, the Justice Department said the ATF had recovered more than 31,000 such devices in the preceding five years; the agency had also recorded a 570% increase in recoveries over the decade before 2021. Federal officials have highlighted the rising recoveries as part of efforts to help law enforcement identify the devices.
Federal law generally prohibits possessing or transferring machine guns, with limited exceptions. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives says the legal definition includes parts designed to convert a weapon into a machine gun, meaning a conversion device can itself be treated as an illegal machine gun even when it is not attached to a firearm. Federal restrictions cover the devices as well as the weapons they convert.
Tapia was originally charged in connection with the operation in July 2025, and an earlier report from the same outlet said he had faced 12 felony charges at that time. Monday's plea resolved the case down to the single drug conspiracy count and firearms charge, with the rest of those charges dropped under the agreement.
Co-Defendant Already Sentenced to Over 21 Years
Tapia's case is not the first resolution to come out of the operation. Torres-Guerrero was sentenced to 260 months in prison in August on the same two charges Tapia was convicted of this week, per the same account from the station. That sentence amounts to more than 21 years behind bars.
Federal prosecutors have brought a similar machine-gun-conversion case in Omaha before. Riley Griffy was sentenced to 57 months in prison after unlawfully possessing a machine gun; prosecutors said he sold a 3D-printed device in 2021 that converted a semiautomatic Glock pistol into an automatic weapon. That earlier case involved a locally made conversion device, though the Justice Department’s account does not identify it as part of the Tapia investigation.
With Tapia's plea now entered, his fate will be decided at his January sentencing hearing, more than two months from now. The case stands as one of the more significant drug and weapons prosecutions to come out of the Omaha area in recent memory, given the combination of automatic-weapon conversions, narcotics and cash described by Douglas County prosecutors.
