8 Members Of Puerto Rico-Based Drug Trafficking Gang Sentenced

TAMPA FL — Tampa U.S. District Judge Susan C. Bucklew sentenced eight members of a Puerto Rico-based drug trafficking organization to federal prison for conspiring to distribute cocaine in the Tampa Bay area.

According to court documents, the eight were part of a gang that trafficked cocaine delivered in parcels from Puerto Rico to Tampa.

Proceeds of the cocaine sales were then turned over to Raymond Jose De La Cruz, aka, Sanky, 46, of Largo, and Jose Manuel Robles Negron, aka Chelo, 27, of Bayamon, Puerto Rico who passed the money on to Jacques Orsini-Martinez, aka Papi, 45, of Bayamon, and others in Puerto Rico.

Investigators said the cocaine was supplied by a transnational crime cartel operating out of the Dominican Republic and Colombia.

“Tio Cano”Orsini-Martinez, aka, Tio Cano, 46 was in federal prison at the time the cocaine was sent to Tampa and used a contraband cellphone to discuss the payment for the drugs to the suppliers in Puerto Rico, according to investigators.

The Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force that arrested the gang members was led by the FBI with assistance from the United States Postal Inspection Service and Tampa Police Department.

Each of the eight gang members pleaded guilty. They include:

• Jacques Orsini-Martinez, who received 13 years in federal prison.
• Juan Carlos Orsini-Martinez, who was already in prison, was sentenced to five more years.
• Negron received 10 years.
• De La Cruz will spend seven years, three months in prison.
• Briss Malone Warren, 43, of Port Richey, was sentenced to four years, three months in prison.
• Pedro Javier Hernandez Sosa, aka Javi Carolina, 31, of Carolina, Puerto Rico, was sentenced to six years, eight months.
• Luis Daniel Agosto Morales, 30, of Tampa, will spend five years in prison.
• Josue Antonio Chinea Santos, 36, of Bayamon, also received a five-year sentence.

The court also ordered Agosto-Morales to forfeit $24,587 traceable to drug proceeds.