A 67-year-old Colorado man has been convicted of leading a drug trafficking operation and sentenced to 376 years in prison, county officials said.
Jose Arellano-Arredondo was found guilty in June for more than 40 counts on charges relating to drugs and money laundering, according to a press release on Aug. 15 by the Weld County District Attorney’s Office.
Arellano-Arredondo was sentenced last week, the release stated.
According to Chief Deputy District Attorney Michael Pirraglia, Arellano-Arredondo’s illegal activities went on for years and affected countless lives.
“For years, this man flooded our streets and community with massive quantities of poison. The true extent of the lives he destroyed may never be known. He exploited others’ addictions for personal profit, and we will not tolerate this behavior in our community,” he said in the release.
An undercover investigation into Arellano-Arredondo’s criminal activities started in 2019, in an operation led by Weld County Drug Task Force.
The District Attorney’s Office confirmed that the investigation revealed a drug trafficking operation, bringing drugs from Mexico into two U.S. states, including Nevada and Arizona, before reaching Arellano-Arredondo in Greeley, Colorado, ultimately leading to his conviction.
Undercover purchases made by investigators led them to conduct searches at Arellano-Arredondo’s residence in September 2020.
Drug enforcement agents intercepted tens of thousands of dollars worth of narcotics and cash during their investigation, all of which was traced to Arellano-Arredondo and his co-conspirators.
“Throughout the investigation into Arellano-Arredondo’s operation, law enforcement would intercept and seize thousands of fentanyl pills, multiple pounds of meth, several ounces of cocaine, and more than $100,000 in cash,” according to the release.
A National Epidemic
According to estimates released by the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics, more than 100,000 people died from drug overdoses in the United States during 2023.
And nearly three-quarters of these drug overdose deaths are related to fentanyl, with the CDC estimating that around 75,000 Americans died from overdosing on synthetic opioids, mostly fentanyl, in 2023.
Most of the fentanyl entering the United States comes from Mexico. However, precursor chemicals required to manufacture the drug are shipped in large quantities from China.
Mexican drug cartels then produce the drug, which is often laced into other narcotics before being shipped into the United States.
In Texas alone, more than half a billion lethal doses of fentanyl have been seized, which is more than enough to kill the entire population of the United States.