Ever Omar Valdez, Cocaine Trafficking, New Mexico 2023

More than six years after they were caught red-handed, two El Paso men have admitted their role in a high-stakes drug run that ended at a checkpoint near Alamogordo, New Mexico. Ever Omar Valdez, 26, and Javier Cruz, 26, both of El Paso, Texas, entered guilty pleas yesterday in federal court in Las Cruces, N.M., to conspiracy to possess cocaine with intent to distribute. Their crime? Smuggling six kilograms — 13.2 pounds — of cocaine through a U.S. Border Patrol inspection point in October 2016.

The bust went down on October 6, 2016, when agents at the Highway 54 checkpoint near Alamogordo flagged the vehicle driven by Valdez and carrying Cruz for a routine inspection. During the search, officers discovered the cocaine concealed inside the car’s rear bumper — a crude but common tactic among traffickers moving bulk narcotics from Mexico into the U.S. interior. Both men were arrested on the spot on a criminal complaint charging them with possession of the illicit cargo in Otero County.

Yesterday’s court proceedings laid bare the details of their admission. Valdez and Cruz each confirmed they knowingly transported the drugs across the border with the intent to deliver them to buyers for money. The felony information they pleaded guilty to outlines a coordinated effort — not a random act of desperation. The men admitted they understood the stakes: six kilos of cocaine represents a major shipment, worth hundreds of thousands of dollars on the street.

Now, they face the full weight of federal drug laws. Each man is staring down a statutory mandatory minimum sentence of ten years in federal prison, with the possibility of life behind bars. No plea deals shielding them from serious time were announced. Both remain in federal custody as they await sentencing hearings, which have not yet been scheduled by the court.

The investigation was led by the Drug Enforcement Administration’s Las Cruces office and the U.S. Border Patrol, agencies that have ramped up operations along New Mexico’s southern corridor in recent years. The checkpoint stop was routine, but the outcome was anything but — a reminder that despite evolving smuggling tactics, old-school interdiction still snags major players.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Clara N. Cobos is prosecuting the case. With no co-defendants named in the filed documents, it appears Valdez and Cruz were the sole targets — and now, the full weight of their decision to move a mountain of cocaine through federal lines is about to land squarely on their shoulders.

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