Mexican National Bojorquez-Rojas Sentenced in WV Meth Conspiracy

Marco Antonio Bojorquez-Rojas, a 21-year-old Mexican national from California, is headed to federal prison for 18 months after pleading guilty to his role in a cross-country methamphetamine trafficking operation that funneled drugs from California to West Virginia. The sentence, handed down in Charleston, marks another conviction in a sprawling drug ring that exploited interstate travel to move cash and narcotics across state lines.

Bojorquez-Rojas admitted he traveled to Charleston in January 2016 with co-conspirators Rafael Garcia Serrato and Cesar Garcia to collect payment for methamphetamine previously shipped to West Virginia. On January 11, 2016, law enforcement raided the group’s hotel room and seized a bag stuffed with $12,000 in cash—money Bojorquez-Rojas confirmed was drug proceeds. The operation was part of a larger scheme involving multiple trips and couriers moving methamphetamine across state lines.

Just two months later, on March 19, 2016, Bojorquez-Rojas returned to the Mountain State, this time to Huntington, to collect more cash from a fresh delivery. The meth had been driven from California by co-defendants Kelly Newcomb and Cara Linn Monasmith. Within hours of arriving, Bojorquez-Rojas and three others were arrested in a Huntington hotel room, ending the second collection attempt.

The case is one piece of an eight-count federal indictment that has already led to multiple convictions. Newcomb, of Nevada, was sentenced to a year and a day for interstate travel in furtherance of a drug crime. Danielle Dessaray Estrada, from Los Angeles, received the same sentence on the same charge. Rachel Arlene Garay and Monasmith, both used as mules, also pleaded guilty to the same offense.

Other key figures in the conspiracy include Serrato, Garcia, Daniel Ortiz-Rivera—a Mexican national—Velarian Sylvester Carter of Beckley, Miguel Tafolla-Montoya, another Mexican national, and Brian Ashby of Kanawha County. All pleaded guilty to conspiring to distribute more than 50 grams of methamphetamine, a charge that carries steep penalties under federal law.

The investigation was a joint effort by the FBI, Homeland Security Investigations, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, the Charleston Police Department, and the Metropolitan Drug Enforcement Network Team. Assistant U.S. Attorney Jennifer Rada Herrald prosecuted the cases. U.S. District Judge John T. Copenhaver, Jr. presided and imposed the sentences. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of West Virginia continues its aggressive crackdown on drug trafficking, targeting supply chains that feed addiction and violence in communities across the region.