Man gets 16 years for running heroin stash house outside Chicago

A man was sentenced to 16 years in prison for running a drug operation that funneled drugs from Mexico to the Chicago area.

Jesus Salgado, 25, pleaded guilty last year to a charge that he distributed heroin to Chicago from a stash house in northwest suburban Bensenville, where he lived, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Before meeting with customers, Salgado picked up heroin from the house, and then dropped off cash there after the sale, prosecutors said. Authorities seized four kilograms of heroin from the house as part of their investigation.

Salgado was one of 19 people arrested in a DEA operation that spanned over two years and seized over 190 kilograms of heroin from the Chicago area.

Prosecutors alleged that Salgado’s father, Lorenzo Salgado, oversaw the operation of the stash house, and would set up drug deals from where he lived in Mexico.

Law enforcement recorded the father and son’s phone conversations, in which they discussed drug sales. The father was also charged with drug conspiracy, and was still a fugitive, prosecutors said.

“The streets of this city are made immeasurably more dangerous because of the drug trade,” U.S. attorneys argued at the sentencing hearing. “People like defendant, who regularly supplied kilogram quantities of heroin and cocaine to wholesale buyers, perpetuate the drug trafficking crisis in Chicago and all that goes with it, including addiction, crime, and violence.”