Anonymous
By the Department of Justice (DOJ)
A federal jury has found two Mexican men guilty of drug and alien trafficking charges after law enforcement caught them on a panga boat containing 45 pounds of methamphetamine and 11 undocumented non-citizens from Mexico on a Santa Barbara County beach, the Justice Department announced today.
Jorge Muñoz-Muñoz, 26, of Ensenada, Mexico, and Roel Aranzubia-Álvarez, 43, of Sinaloa, Mexico, were found guilty on Tuesday afternoon of one count of conspiracy to bring non-citizens into the United States, 11 counts of alien smuggling, 11 counts of alien smuggling for private financial gain, and one count of aiding and assisting an alien convicted of an aggravated felony to enter the United States.
Muñoz-Muñoz also was found guilty of one count of conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine, one count of possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine, one count of conspiracy to import methamphetamine, and one count of importation of methamphetamine. Aranzubia-Álvarez was found not guilty of the drug-related charges.
According to evidence presented at their five-day trial, on the morning of September 27, 2021, law enforcement sighted a panga boat adrift off the coast of Santa Barbara County. The vessel, which was having engine trouble, ultimately made landfall at Arroyo Quemada Beach, approximately 25 miles west of Santa Barbara.
The investigation in this matter revealed that there were 15 people on the boat, including several crewmembers, and that Aranzubia-Álvarez was the boat’s captain. Two black bags that contained a total of 40 vacuum-sealed and plastic wrapped bindles, totaling approximately 45 pounds, were thrown off the boat by passengers at Muñoz-Muñoz’s direction and later were recovered by law enforcement.
Law enforcement also later confirmed that all occupants of the boat were undocumented non-citizens. Based on interviews with the passengers, it was determined that the passengers arrived at a beach in Ensenada, Mexico to board a panga that would smuggle them into the United States for a price of approximately $15,000 each.
Both defendants have been in federal custody since their arrest in September 2021.
United States District Judge Dale S. Fischer scheduled an April 10 sentencing hearing, at which time Muñoz-Muñoz will face a statutory maximum sentence of life in federal prison, and Aranzubia-Álvarez will face a statutory maximum sentence of 15 years in federal prison.
Homeland Security Investigations investigated this matter. United States Customs and Border Protection, the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office, and the California Department of Parks and Recreation provided substantial assistance.
Assistant United States Attorney Haoxiaohan Cai and Justice Department Trial Attorney Siobhan M. Namazi, both of the General Crimes Section, are prosecuting this case.
Related Articles
September 27, 2022: Panga Boat and Passengers Apprehended North of Goleta
WHAT A JOKE… Tens of THOUSANDS are crossing EVERYDAY illegally with drugs and human trafficking. ZERO is done with this Administration- Nothing… but hey, it will secure Democratic voters for a generation and that’s all that counts… ( I believe the lower estimate over the last 2 yrs is 8 Million)
Coastwatch, just saying that you come off as a kook when you say stuff like “zero is done with this administration…” You could say ‘less’ and then try to justify it. I wish you well on that.
COAST – good thing none of what you said is true. Imagine how bad that would be if it were!
Coast, lol…..just lol at your comment. Like Sac said, good thing none of your comment is true….or even containing a fraction of reality. Please stop listening to Fox News and then getting on here and posting your weird right wing conspiracies and inaccuracies. it’s comical, but so is a fart, and i’m comparing your statement to the latter….
Sacjon, so ten’s of thousand aren’t crossing everyday illegally, many trafficked? No drugs either? The lower end estimate of illegal immigration over the past 2 years isn’t 8 million? It’s most certainly several million. I’ll give you that it’s not true the Administration is doing nothing, next to nothing would be more accurate.
Nope. Thousands, but not tens of thousands. OK, I concede on the drugs part, must have missed that. Border crossings in last 2 years are about 4 million (https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/southwest-land-border-encounters). The Biden Administration is not doing “nothing.” So yeah, again….. NOPE.
So you were wrong about “none of what you said was true”, when in fact it was rather close to all being true. Also – up to 250K people per month are apprehended at the borders, add in another 100K of “known” (observed) gotaways, and you have tens of thousands a day right there. Then of course is the ones that aren’t even caught or observed. Facts matter Sacjon, you didn’t have them be went to blanketly label everything Coast said as not true. https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/southwest-land-border-encounters
LOL yes facts DO matter, so does math. Your extra “100K” is not supported, so ignore that made up “stat.” Please tell us what 2,378,944 divided by 365 is. Here’s a hint: it’s not over 10,000. Therefore, your math and statement is WRONG. Also, please add 2,378,944 and 1,734,686 for total encounters (not even necessarily crossings) in the last 2 years. Hint: it’s not close to 8 million.
As you say, “facts matter.” Wrong is wrong and COAST and you are WRONG.
“So you were wrong about “none of what you said was true”, when in fact it was rather close to all being true. ” – Nope, I was right. Also, “close to all being true” isn’t the same as being true, ergo….. WRONG.
Facts: “Per DHS sources, there have been over 500,000 known gotaways at the border since FY’22 began on 10/1, far eclipsing the 389,155 gotaways Secretary Mayorkas reported in all of FY’21.” (this was in July, the 100K number is accurate).
You’re numbers only include apprehension/encounters – are you saying CBP apprehends nearly every person trying to come over the board? And I’m the one without “facts”.?
Cons have been crying wolf about undocumented immigrants and acting macho as an election ploy for decades. The last admin said the quiet part out loud, saying they want the “right immigrants” then alluded to Europeans. The truth is that Obama deported more people in his 1st term than his successor. All talk, no walk. Just dumping rusty junk in the desert like children. Their focus on drugs and immigrants is only a means to the end of scaring old white people into voting for them. Too bad so many of them died because “Fauci is a communist” or whatever their belief of the week was.
Yeah, I read an article on the number of GOP voters who have died from Covid vs the number of Democratic voters and in margin thin states that difference likely decided a number of races in the last election. Ironically MAGAWACKOS trying to convince their supporters not to get vaccinated or worry about Covid killed a bunch of their constituents and put some of these politicians out of the job. Par for the course for the right wing which only knows how to tear things down—to their own detriment, these fools have been talking about overthrowing or destroying our government for decades—then they tried and it isn’t going well for them.
My point is that you can’t attack the drug trade by blaming the boats and other traffickers coming in. Sorry if I wasn’t clear on that. But yeah, how do we stop the US demand for drugs? Whoever can solve that problem probably should be up for a Nobel Prize. I’d say it starts with parents and how they raise their kids.
VOR, you really think that putting a label of “terrorist” on already massively violent criminal organizations will make a difference??!!
HAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!
You sound real woke with that dumb idea.
Notice that NO mention was made of the fate of the “11 undocumented non-citizens from Mexico” who were also in that boat. Would you like to bet they were released without bail and asked to show up for a court date several years in the future? Yeah, and just think of how many people that amount of meth would impact and possibly kill.
SAC – Are you suggesting experimenting with/using drugs is “human nature?” I disagree. If this were true, the numbers of people involved with drugs, despite a high quality family life would be much greater.
OG’s got the right path towards reducing demand. For the life of me I don’t understand why the cartels aren’t labeled a terrorist organization.
Here, some reading on the cartel/terrorist matter from well before the Orange Man got involved and people like you become immediately and vehemently opposed to whatever he brought up, regardless of the issue. https://www.lawfareblog.com/should-mexican-cartels-be-designated-terrorist-organizations
VOICE – You. Are. Wrong. Done and I’m out.
Alex, that “label” opens up additional tools, resources and legal avenues to address the problem.
Unlike you I’m not inclined to accept the status quo as it relates to the cartels, the amount of power they have, the signficiant destruction left in the wake of their criminal activates, the massive amounts of drugs smuggled in our country and our own rampant and deadly drug problem. I want something to be done, and right now the powers that be aren’t even trying.