Narcotics agents arrested three Mexican immigrants on drug trafficking charges Dec. 11 during a raid on a North McCurdy Road house.
The multi-agency Region III Narcotics Task Force arrested Israel Jose Amaya-Romero, 22; Honorio Batista, 21; and Luis Camilos Lozana-Sepulveda, 26, while executing a federal search warrant, Region III Lt. Juan Martinez said. Agents confiscated and turned over to the federal Drug Enforcement Agency 3.5 grams of heroin, two revolvers and between $8,000 and $10,000 in cash, Martinez said.
Martinez said the three men are in federal custody on an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainer because they are all undocumented immigrants.
Although Lozana-Sepulveda is from the Mexican state of Nayarit, Martinez said Region III had not yet determined whether the group was affiliated with the Nayarit cartel or any other drug organization. The task force had arrested three men Nov. 17 who are suspected members of the Nayarit drug cartel.
“They might be a different cell operating out of the Española Valley,” Martinez said of the men arrested Dec. 11. “We’ve been investigating them for a while.”
Martinez said Region III had found out about the cell after the arrest of a former Mexican police officer whom State Police arrested Oct. 30. The former officer, Sigfredo Garcia Aguilar, 46, had told police he was selling heroin to pay off the debt he owed to people who helped him immigrate illegally.
As of Tuesday evening, no charges had been filed in federal or state court against the three men arrested Dec. 11, according to an online court record databases.
Martinez said the trio would face federal drug-trafficking charges.