Tomas Gutierrez Ayala, Cocaine and Methamphetamine Trafficking, Alaska 2014

Anchorage, Alaska - A California man has been sentenced to 75 months in prison for his role in a conspiracy to sell large quantities of cocaine and methamphetamine to Alaska-based drug dealers.

Tomas Gutierrez Ayala of California previously pled guilty to conspiring with others to distribute methamphetamine and cocaine. As part of his guilty plea, Ayala admitted that he was personally responsible for the distribution or attempted distribution of ten pounds of methamphetamine. Ayala further admitted that he had been involved in several other previous methamphetamine and cocaine sales.

According to Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephanie C. Courter, who prosecuted the case, the conspiracy began in February 2013 and continued until Ayala was indicted in October 2014. Ayala's involvement came to the attention of law enforcement in July 2013 when ten pounds of methamphetamine was found in his garage in close proximity to mail bearing his name. Ayala had received the drugs from co-conspirators in Mexico and admitted intending to sell them to an Alaska-based co-conspirator who planned to mail them back to Anchorage for distribution.

As part of his guilty plea, Ayala admitted that, during his involvement in the conspiracy, he had distributed both methamphetamine and cocaine to an Alaska-based co-conspirator on multiple occasions. At sentencing, the parties discussed the harm that methamphetamine causes in our community, noting that the ten pounds of methamphetamine seized from Ayala in July 2013 equated to more than 33,000 individual doses of the drug.

Upon being released from prison, Ayala will be on supervised release for five years. The sentencing hearing is related to a string of indictments returned in late 2014 and early 2015 as part of ongoing efforts to dismantle and prosecute several large-scale drug trafficking rings with ties to Alaska, California, Texas, Arizona, and Mexico.

To date, the following individuals have been sentenced as part of these efforts: Timothy Alex, an Anchorage drug distributor, previously sentenced to 108 months in prison; Daniel Harris, an Anchorage drug distributor, previously sentenced to 135 months in prison; Jose Ramon Canales, of Texas, previously sentenced to 70 months in prison for laundering drug money out of the United States and into Mexico; Genaro Gutierrez-Reyes, of California, previously sentenced to 18 months in prison for laundering drug money out of the United States and into Mexico; Jorge Armando Zaragoza-Soto, of Mexico, previously sentenced to 96 months in prison for drug trafficking; and Geronimo Arellano Velarde, of California, previously sentenced to 120 months in prison for drug trafficking.

This and the related cases were investigated as part of the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF). In announcing the sentence, U.S. Attorney Loeffler praised the work of the law enforcement agencies involved, including the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation Division (IRS-CID), and the Anchorage Police Department.

Source: https://www.justice.gov/usao-ak/pr/california-man-sentenced-75-months-prison-role-large-scale-drug-trafficking-conspiracy