Jose Rolando Arroyo Balcazar, Methamphetamine Trafficking, Alabama 2013

Methamphetamine Trafficking Ring Busted in Northeast Alabama

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. – A conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine in northeast Alabama and Chattanooga has led to charges against 10 individuals, including two illegal aliens serving time in Georgia state prisons.

According to a federal indictment, Jose Rolando Arroyo Balcazar, 36, and his sister, Juanna Balcazar, 28, of Boaz, used contraband cell phones to direct at least eight people in the region to carry out the conspiracy. The indictment charges the group with trafficking 50 grams or more of methamphetamine in Cleburne, Etowah, Marshall, and DeKalb counties from December 2013 through May 2015.

Jose Balcazar is currently serving a 30-year sentence in a Georgia state prison on a 2007 methamphetamine trafficking conviction, while Miguel Manriquez, 38, is serving a life sentence in a separate Georgia prison on a 2003 murder conviction. Both men are Mexican nationals in the United States illegally.

The indictment also charges Yezenia Montufar Martinez, 28, Miguel Manriquez, 38, Alee Thomas Walker, 37, Anthony Paul Lee, 36, Bernube Perez, 22, and Rafael Jose Castillo Morales, 27, of Chattanooga, with the conspiracy. Melissa Nicasio, 28, also of Chattanooga, is charged with one count of conspiring with Morales to distribute methamphetamine in Etowah and DeKalb counties between March and April 2015.

The three defendants arrested July 9 are Juanna Balcazar, Morales, and Nicasio. Jose Balcazar and Manriquez communicated with each other and with people outside the prison system to carry on the methamphetamine trafficking operation, according to testimony last week in federal court in Huntsville.

“The conspiracy charged here was responsible for supplying the intensely addictive and debilitating drug, methamphetamine, in northeast Alabama for at least two years,” U.S. Attorney Joyce White Vance said. “Thanks to the many law enforcement agencies that joined together to identify the participants in this organization, including two who were giving orders from within Georgia state prisons, we were able to shut off this illegal supply network.”

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