The co-leader of a national drug-trafficking ring, who reportedly planned to kill a Centralia police officer, has been sentenced to 15 years in prison, First Assistant U.S. Attorney Charles Neil Floyd announced in a Tuesday news release.
Iris Adrianna Amador-Garcia, 35, of Bellflower, California, had for years “arranged for the distribution of pound quantities of methamphetamine, hundreds of thousands of fentanyl pills and large quantities of heroin,” according to the release.
She was sentenced Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Seattle.
According to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), Amador-Garcia’s drug ring sent drugs across the country into Massachusetts, New York, Illinois, Ohio, Florida, Arkansas, Tennessee and Virginia. Conspirators even attempted to mail 19 pounds of methamphetamine to Fiji in 2021, until law enforcement seized the contraband.
An investigation conducted by the Homeland Security Task Force (HSTF) reportedly found that Amador-Garcia sourced the majority of the drugs from her family in Mexico.
The Mexican national also laundered money and possessed firearms.
Law enforcement began identifying the ring’s leaders in February 2020. Investigators reportedly seized dozens of pounds of methamphetamine and tens of thousands of fentanyl pills across multiple traffic stops in 2020 and 2021.
Seven Washingtonians were arrested in 2021, along with Amador-Garcia and her fiancé, Jose Maldonado-Ramirez. During a search of Amador-Garcia’s residence, agents reportedly seized a kilogram of fentanyl, 80,000 fentanyl pills and two firearms.
Other firearms were seized in Washington and California.
According to previous reporting from the Kitsap Sun, agents heard a phone conversation between Amador-Garcia and Maldonado-Ramirez in which Amador-Garcia said she knew the name of the Centralia officer who’d conducted a recent drug bust — and where he lived.
“They are going to knock him down,” Amador-Garcia said, as revealed in court documents obtained by the Kitsap Sun.
The officer was not named in the release or in previous reporting.
Upon ordering Amador-Garcia’s sentence, U.S. District Judge John C. Coughenour said, “Threats against law enforcement is a line in the sand that is completely unacceptable.”
Floyd called Amador-Garcia’s organization, which she led alongside Maldonado-Ramirez, “well-organized, well-sourced, and well-connected.”
“This defendant was prepared to take drastic measures to protect what she had built,” Floyd said. “She and her criminal associates were intercepted openly discussing killing an officer after a large shipment of drugs was seized. I am grateful for the diligent work of law enforcement to keep that officer safe, and to take these dangerous traffickers off the street and shut down their pipeline of devastating narcotics.”
Robert A. Saccone, special agent in charge at the Drug Enforcement Administration’s (DEA) Seattle Field Division, said Amador-Garcia’s sentencing “sends a clear message that those who traffic fentanyl, methamphetamine, and other deadly drugs into our communities, and those who threaten violence against law enforcement, will be held accountable.”
Prior to Amador-Garcia’s sentencing, prosecutors said the “nation-wide reach” of the operation sets it apart from most others prosecuted in the district.
According to the release, the investigation was led by the DEA’s Seattle Field Division and Tacoma Resident Office, as well as the Bremerton Police Department.
Dozens of other organizations assisted, including the Joint Narcotics Enforcement Team, the Centralia Police Department, the Chehalis Police Department and the Thurston Narcotics Team.
HSTF Seattle consists of agents and officers from Homeland Security Investigations; the FBI; the DEA; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; the United States Marshals Service; the U.S. Postal Inspection Service; Internal Revenue Service-Criminal Investigations; the United States Secret Service; U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the U.S. Coast Guard Investigative Service.
