Leader Of Heroin, Cocaine Trafficking Operation Sentenced

CHICAGO, IL -- A federal judge has sentenced a California man to 35 years in prison for overseeing an international drug-trafficking organization that used Amtrak trains to ship heroin and cocaine to Chicago from Los Angeles, prosecutors said Wednesday. Edgar Roque, 32, of Paramount, Calif., was the leader of an extensive network of drug dealers that moved thousands of kilograms of narcotics aboard the trains from 2010 to 2016. His organization involved more than a dozen people in California, Illinois and elsewhere.

Those involved in the drug-trafficking organization would pick up drugs at Union Station in Chicago, and store the narcotics at stash houses, including a home in the Gage Park neighborhood of Chicago and an apartment in northwest suburban Streamwood. After selling the drugs throughout the Chicago area, Edgar Roque or members of his crew periodically flew west on commercial airlines with the cash proceeds, often carrying $150,000 per person, according to a news release from the U.S Attorney's Office, Northern District of Illinois.

At Roque's direction, hundreds of packages were shipped from California to Chicago, St. Louis and elsewhere, each carrying at least three kilograms of cocaine and sometimes significantly more. Roque worked with an insider at Amtrak to facilitate the shipments and avoid detection by law enforcement, according to the news release.

Roque pleaded guilty earlier this year to drug and money laundering charges. U.S. District Judge Virginia M. Kendall ordered the prison time Tuesday in federal court in Chicago.

“This is criminal conduct of the worst kind,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Paul H. Tzur argued in the government’s sentencing memorandum. “Edgar Roque’s leadership role directing the mass movement of heroin and cocaine into the Chicago area and elsewhere showed that he had absolutely no regard for the safety and well-being of addicts and the communities into which he delivered the drugs.”

Authorities uncovered Edgar Roque’s drug-trafficking operation through a multi-year investigation dubbed “Operation Derailed.” The investigation was conducted under the umbrella of the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force, a partnership between federal, state and local law enforcement agencies. The principal mission of OCDETF is to identify, disrupt and dismantle the most serious drug trafficking and money laundering organizations.

More than 20 defendants were charged during the investigation, and several have pleaded guilty to their roles in Edgar Roque’s organization.

PHOTO VIA SHUTTERSTOCK