A Whittier man accused of leading a scheme to provide high-powered firearms and ammunition to a Mexican drug cartel has been indicted on federal charges along with five other men, the U.S. Department of Justice announced Monday, Jan. 24.
Marco Antonio Santillan Valencia, 51, of Whittier, was indicted by a federal grand jury on Dec. 21 and taken into custody on Wednesday, Jan. 19, the DOJ said in a press release. The other men indicted included Anthony Marmolejo Aguilar, 30, also of Whittier; Marco Santillan Jr., 29, of Pahrump, Nevada; Michael Diaz, 33, of Moreno Valley; Luis De Arcos, 51, of Midway City’ and Rafael Magallon Castillo, 34, of Oceano, the press release said.
Aguilar already was in custody on separate charges in North Carolina while Castillo is believed to be a fugitive in Mexico, the DOJ said. Santillan Jr. was arrested in Oregon on Wednesday and Diaz and De Arcos also were taken into custody, the DOJ said.
The defendants face a total of 23 charges, authorities said.
All men were charged with conspiracy to violate export administration regulations regarding “items that could make a significant contribution to the military potential of other nations” and could be “detrimental to the foreign policy or national security of the United States,” the DOJ said. Five of the men were charged with various attempted smuggling counts and Santillan Valencia and his son, Santillan Jr., were charged in a money laundering conspiracy, according to the DOJ.
Santillan Valencia, De Arcos and Diaz all entered pleas of not guilty on Wednesday, the DOJ said.
“This case alleges a scheme to provide military-grade firepower to a major drug trafficking organization that commits unspeakable acts of violence in Mexico to further its goal of flooding the United States with dangerous and deadly narcotics,” said United States Attorney Tracy L. Wilkison.
The arrests were the result of a federal investigation aimed at targeting a domestic weapons trafficking organization who was allegedly providing firearms and ammunition to Cártel Jalisco Nueva Generación in Mexico, the DOJ said. The cartel is described as “one of the largest and most violent drug cartels in Mexico,” according to the DOJ press release.
Santillan Valencia is accused of heading the organization which used profits from narcotics sales to purchase assault rifles, hundreds of thousands of rounds of assault rifle ammunition, machine gun parts and accessories and smuggle them into Mexico, the DOJ said. The duration of the operation has mostly taken place since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
“The defendants in this case smuggled sophisticated weaponry out of the United States to one of the most violent cartels in Mexico whose members target not only rival gangs, but innocent Mexican citizens and Mexican law enforcement,” said Kristi K Johnson, the assistant director of the FBI’s Los Angeles field office.
The indictment alleges that the organization obtained the firearms in Oregon and Nevada, consolidated shipments in or near Pahrump and Whittier, and smuggled them to Mexico, the DOJ said. They also allegedly obtained ammunition from various states to be delivered to a stash location in Nevada, authorities said.
The organization operated for about one year after beginning no later than March 2020 and obtained thousands of rounds of .50-caliber armor piercing incendiary rounds in Arizona, the DOJ said. Authorities seized six assault rifles, over 250,000 rounds of assault rifle ammunition, over $300,000 worth of weapons parts and kits to assemble “six-barrel rotary machine guns capable of firing up to 6,000 rounds per minute,” the DOJ said in it’s press release.
The charge of conspiracy to violate export administration regulations carries a statutory maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison, while the attempted smuggling counts each carry a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison, the DOJ said.
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