Two years after federal investigators seized a cocaine-laden jet in Gary, they say they’ve worked their way up the ladder of an organization that imported thousands of pounds of the drug from Mexico to Chicago and other cities.
Reputed ringleader Oswaldo Espinosa and 14 others were indicted in July in federal court in Chicago on drug conspiracy charges. From March 2021 to March 2022, the government seized more than 1,200 pounds of cocaine from Espinosa’s operatives in Chicago, Indiana, Texas and Florida, authorities say.
Espinosa isn’t in federal custody, but many of his co-defendants have been arrested, records show.
The case against them is linked to the federal seizure of a Bombardier Challenger jet in November 2021.
Agents were watching men transfer luggage from the plane into a Lincoln Navigator at the Gary/Chicago International Airport. Later, agents stopped two of the men on Rush Street in the Gold Coast and found 175 pounds of cocaine in suitcases in the Toyota Highlander they were in.
Investigators found another 44 pounds of coke in luggage in a nearby hotel where one of the men was staying, prosecutors said.
The plane flew from Mexico to Houston, where the cocaine was loaded onboard, before continuing to Gary, according to the indictment. Agents were tracking the jet because it made a previous round trip between Toluca, Mexico, just west of Mexico City, and Gary.
Three men linked to the pickup of the cocaine on the jet have pleaded guilty to drug charges and were sentenced to years-long prison terms. In a separate case, Espinosa and his co-defendants are awaiting trial.
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s case stemming from the jet is among a growing number of federal investigations involving major seizures of cocaine in the Chicago area in recent years. The global supply of cocaine is at record levels with cultivation of coca leaves, the main ingredient in cocaine, rising 43% in 2021 in Colombia, the United Nations said in a report released in March.
Cocaine production began to rise because of a 2016 peace deal forged between Colombia and anti-government rebels who cultivated cocaine to fund their activities. Then, during the COVID pandemic in 2020 and 2021, the government curtailed raids on cocaine plantations and growers were able to stockpile coca leaves, according to the U.N. The finished cocaine is typically transported from Colombia to the United States via Mexico.
In the Chicago area, the DEA saw its cocaine seizures increase sharply from 911 pounds in 2019 to 1,036 in 2020, 2,915 in 2021, 3,221 pounds last year and 2,316 pounds this year, according to a spokesperson. The figures are for DEA’s fiscal year, which runs from Oct. 1 to Sept. 30.
Defendants in some of the other major drug-related cases filed in recent years in federal court in Chicago include:
- Eldar Mata, James Baker and Luis Gonzalez Lopez, indicted in August on a money-laundering charge. They’re accused of funneling $40 million in suspected drug proceeds to bank accounts in Colombia from 2019 to 2022 using cryptocurrency. Mata, who reaped about $590,000 in fees, bought a Maserati with some of the money, prosecutors said.
A scene portraying Colombian cartel leaders from the show “Narcos” was the logo for a WhatsApp online chat room Mata and Baker used, according to an affidavit of an IRS agent, who said Mata wrote: “Bro I met some clients yesterday Straight outta Culiacan. They be looking like extras in El Chapo show.” Culiacan is the capital of Sinaloa state in Mexico where former drug cartel boss Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman Loera had reigned.
- Anthony Hernandez who, according to an informant, is a U.S. citizen who lived on a ranch in Jalisco, Mexico. According to a DEA agent’s affidavit, Hernandez worked directly for the leaders of a drug cartel. He’s preparing to change his not-guilty plea, his attorney said in court Monday. Hernandez is accused of having a government informant regularly pick up loads of more than 200 pounds of cocaine to distribute to customers.
- Jose Pablo Barraza-Resendez and Diego Soto-Herrera, who were sentenced this year to prison terms. They pleaded guilty to charges stemming from a seizure of 55 pounds of cocaine from their Northwest Side home, as well as selling about six and a half pounds of cocaine to a woman in Lombard. They’d moved from Mexico to Chicago to deal cocaine in order to pay off a debt Barraza and his family owed in Mexico, prosecutors said.
- Ronald Coleman, a truck driver who’s awaiting trial on charges accusing him of transporting about 200 pounds of cocaine. An Illinois State Police trooper seized the drugs after stopping his truck in April near Rockford. According to prosecutors, Coleman told the trooper he was shipping the cocaine from California to a Chicago warehouse and planned to transport the drug proceeds back to California.
