Reydecel Lopez-Ordonez, 23, of Albuquerque, N.M., admitted in federal court yesterday to distributing heroin and using communication devices to push poison through the veins of New Mexico’s communities. The guilty plea marks a direct hit in a sprawling federal case targeting a heroin ring that flooded Bernalillo County with hundreds of grams of the drug between 2014 and 2015.
Lopez-Ordonez pled guilty to one count of distributing heroin and two counts of using a phone to facilitate drug trafficking. He admitted to arranging heroin sales on March 19 and June 10, 2015, using telephones as tools of the trade. Then, on July 9 and 10, 2015, he sold 568 grams of heroin to an undercover agent in exchange for $26,000—cold, calculated transactions that fed an epidemic tearing through the Southwest.
The case stems from a 13-count indictment filed December 2, 2015, naming Lopez-Ordonez and four co-defendants: Gonzalo Montenegro-Coronel, 31, a Mexican national; Esther Ordonez, 48; Miguel Ordonez, 23; and Fernando Gomez-Campos, 21, of El Paso, Texas. All five were charged with participating in a heroin trafficking conspiracy from November 2014 to September 2015. Esther Ordonez, Miguel Ordonez, and Montenegro-Coronel face additional charges for maintaining a stash house in southwest Albuquerque used to store and distribute heroin.
Forfeiture demands are steep. The indictment requires the defendants to surrender $53,760 and a residence in southwest Albuquerque to the federal government. Under the terms of his plea deal, Lopez-Ordonez will forfeit over $10,000 in drug proceeds and any claim to the same southwest property—assets bought with addiction and paid for in human wreckage.
Lopez-Ordonez now stares down a sentence of five to 40 years in federal prison. He remains locked up as authorities sort through the fallout. His co-defendants have entered not guilty pleas and await trial. The presumption of innocence clings to them—for now. But the evidence, built through wiretaps, undercover buys, and coordinated raids, suggests the net is tightening.
The investigation was led by the DEA’s Albuquerque office and the HIDTA Region I Drug Task Force, a multi-agency coalition including the Albuquerque Police Department, Rio Rancho Police, Valencia County Sheriff, Pueblo of Pojoaque Tribal Police, and federal partners. Funded by the White House ONDCP, the task force operates under the OCDETF program, designed to dismantle large-scale drug operations. Prosecutors Shaheen P. Torgoley and Stephen R. Kotz are handling the case under the New Mexico HOPE Initiative, launched in 2015 to combat the opioid crisis that has ravaged the state.
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Key Facts
- State: New Mexico
- Agency: DOJ USAO
- Category: Drug Trafficking
- Source: Official Source ↗
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