Jose Francisco Vasquez-Rico, Fentanyl Trafficking, North Carolina 2021

CHARLOTTE, N.C. – U.S. Attorney Dena J. King announced that Jose Francisco Vasquez-Rico, 22, has been sentenced to 168 months in prison for trafficking fentanyl and methamphetamine.

Vasquez-Rico and Andrew Estiben Reyna-Rodriguez, 23, both of Charlotte, were sentenced on January 8, 2021, for their roles in a conspiracy to traffic narcotics, including fentanyl and methamphetamine, in Mecklenburg, Gaston, and Cleveland Counties.

According to court documents and information presented at the sentencing hearing, Vasquez-Rico was the head of the local drug ring. Over the course of the investigation, undercover agents posing as customers purchased fentanyl and methamphetamine on multiple occasions from Vasquez-Rico and Reyna-Rodriguez.

On one occasion, Vasquez-Rico arranged to sell a kilogram of fentanyl to an undercover agent and agreed to meet the undercover agent in Asheville. While Vasquez-Rico and Reyna-Rodriguez were driving to Asheville to deliver the fentanyl, a North Carolina State Highway Patrol trooper conducted a traffic stop of their vehicle.

The defendants initially stopped their car, but then sped off soon when the trooper exited his police vehicle. After speeding away, the pair briefly pulled over to the side of a country road and attempted to hide in the woods a bag and a loaded firearm, which law enforcement subsequently recovered.

Vasquez-Rico and Reyna-Rodriguez both pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute and to possess with intent to distribute fentanyl and methamphetamine, and distribution and possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine. Both defendants are currently in custody and will be transferred to the custody of the federal Bureau of Prisons upon designation of a federal facility.

Vasquez-Rico was ordered to serve five years of supervised release upon completion of his prison term. This effort is part of an Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF) operation.

U.S. Attorney King commended the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department, the Gastonia Police Department, the Gaston County Police Department, the Lincolnton Police Department, and the North Carolina State Highway Patrol for their coordination and investigation of the case.

Assistant United States Attorney Taylor G. Stout, of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Charlotte, prosecuted the case.

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