- Three men were indicted in Utah for trafficking a combined 230 pounds of narcotics.
- In West Valley City, around 240,000 fentanyl pills were located hidden within wooden furniture panels, police say.
- More than 176 pounds of methamphetamine were seized during a traffic stop in southern Utah.
SALT LAKE CITY — Three men have been indicted in Utah federal court for allegedly trafficking a combined total of more than 230 pounds of narcotics in three separate cases, including fentanyl pills that were hidden in furniture panels.
In one case, Christian Salinas-Santiago, 30, of Los Angeles, was indicted on May 6 for distribution of heroin. A trial is scheduled for July.
In January, Salt Lake police were investigating a Mexico-based narcotics trafficker with whom an undercover Homeland Security Investigations agent was communicating about drug shipments coming to Utah, according to the federal complaint. The undercover agent was contacted on April 21 by the drug trafficker to pick up a kilogram of heroin in Midvale.
When the agent showed up at the location, Salinas-Santiago arrived in a vehicle and had a female passenger hand the agent a package of heroin, according to court documents. His vehicle was stopped shortly after for a traffic violation and Salinas-Santiago was arrested.
"Salinas-Santiago admitted to transporting narcotics from California to Utah and delivering them to another individual, stating he would be paid $2,000 upon his return to California. He claimed that the female passenger had no knowledge of the narcotics and described bringing her as a lapse in judgment," the federal complaint states.
The man also claimed he knew the package contained drugs, but did not know what kind, court documents said.
A federal arrest warrant alleges Salinas-Santiago's actions were in violation of his probation for a previous drug charge. He may be subject to increased punishment in this case due to his prior 2016 conviction of distributing methamphetamine in Nebraska.
In the second case, Crisantos Javier Sotelo Valencia, 27, of Mexico, was residing illegally in West Valley City when he was arrested on March 3 during the execution of an arrest warrant in a federal drug case, according to a motion for detention. Sotelo was indicted for that case and charged with money laundering and conspiracy to distribute fentanyl, heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine.
During his arrest in March, agents seized a cellphone from Sotelo that had videos of him holding large amounts of cash and narcotics, including suspected fentanyl, court documents state. The videos allegedly show narcotics being concealed inside composite wood furniture at his residence.
The officers searched his residence and located around 240,000 fentanyl pills, weighing almost 53 pounds, hidden inside wooden furniture panels, according to court documents.
Sotelo was indicted again on April 22 and charged with possession of fentanyl with intent to distribute. In that case, a trial was scheduled in July. In the conspiracy case, his jury trial was continued to August.
In a third case in southern Utah, federal agents arrested Robert William Galicia-Hernandez, 27, of Sinaloa, Mexico, during a traffic stop near the Utah-Arizona border on March 13. A police K-9 sniffed the vehicle and alerted to the presence of drugs.
Officers searched the vehicle and seized multiple packages of methamphetamine, weighing approximately 176.6 pounds, according to a federal motion for detention filed in April.
"Galicia indicated that individuals in Mexico had made the arrangements for the drugs and the trip. He admitted he was going to receive payment for transporting the contraband but refused to specify the amount, only indicating it was more than $100," court documents said.
He was charged with possession of methamphetamine with intent to distribute. Galicia-Hernandez made his first court appearance on April 20 and has a trial scheduled at the end of June, according to court records.
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Cassidy Wixom
