Rogelio Arevalo-Villasenor, Marijuana Manufacturing, Idaho 2016

A 24-year-old Mexican national was sentenced to 18 months in federal prison for conspiring to manufacture marijuana in Idaho.

Rogelio Arevalo-Villasenor, illegally residing in Parma, Idaho, pleaded guilty on July 14, 2016, to conspiracy to manufacture a controlled substance, more than 1,000 marijuana plants, with the intent to distribute it.

Visiting Senior U.S. District Judge Dee V. Benson also ordered Arevalo-Villasenor to serve one year of supervised release. Following his prison sentence, Arevalo-Villasenor will likely be deported to Mexico.

The charges stem from a joint investigation and cooperative law enforcement efforts of the Organized Crime and Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF), led by the Drug Enforcement Administration, Bureau of Land Management (BLM), Nampa Police Department Special Investigations Unit (SIU), and other agencies, including the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), U. S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), and the Boise County Sheriff’s Office.

On September 23, 2015, co-defendants Martin Diaz-Lara and Carlos Avalos-Cervantes were arrested in a canyon half a mile from the North Fork of Payette River, ten miles north of Banks, in Boise County, Idaho. Agents documented a total of 6,870 live and harvested marijuana plants on state lands in the canyon.

Avalos-Cervantes and Diaz-Lara pleaded guilty to conspiracy to manufacture marijuana with intent to distribute and possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime. Avalos-Cervantes was sentenced on April 19, 2016, to 180 months in prison, while Diaz-Lara was sentenced to 97 months in prison on June 15, 2016.

The investigation revealed that those working in the marijuana grow used a banned Mexican pesticide, carbofuran, which was banned by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 1991, after its use resulted in the death of millions of birds per year.

Arevalo-Villasenor admitted to supplying Diaz-Lara, Avalos-Cervantes, and other workers with groceries on at least three occasions, by dropping off food and supplies at the trailhead located just off Highway 55. All of those responsible for the public land outdoor marijuana grow are Mexican nationals who entered the United States illegally.

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