A man accused of leading one of the world\u2019s most prolific cocaine trafficking organizations has been arrested in San Diego, according to federal prosecutors.<\/p>\n
Eugenio Dario Molina-Lopez, 61, also known as Dan Dario or Molis, is alleged to be the leader of Los Huistas, a drug-trafficking organization based in northwest Guatemala near the Mexican border, prosecutors said. He made his initial court appearance Thursday and pleaded not guilty.<\/p>\n
The arrest is tied to Operation Guerrilla Unit, a multi-year investigation led by the Department of Homeland Security Investigations, federal prosecutors in San Diego and law enforcement partners in Guatemala and Mexico. The investigation targeted Molina-Lopez, the organization, and a network of high-level cocaine suppliers operating across several countries, authorities said.<\/p>\n
\u201cCartel leaders don\u2019t get to write the end of their stories,\u201d said Adam Gordon, the top federal prosecutor for the Southern District of California. <\/p>\n
Los Huistas was responsible for coordinating large-scale cocaine shipments across international borders and was one of the most prolific cocaine traffickers on the globe, prosecutors said.<\/p>\n
Molina-Lopez was originally charged in a 2019 federal indictment with conspiracy to distribute cocaine intended for importation to the United States and conspiracy to distribute cocaine on board a vessel.<\/p>\n
In 2022, the U.S. State Department offered a reward of up to $10 million for information leading to his arrest. <\/p>\n
Molina-Lopez faces a potential maximum sentence of life in prison and a $10-million fine if convicted, according to prosecutors. A motion hearing and trial setting is scheduled for May 11.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A man accused of leading one of the world\u2019s most prolific cocaine trafficking organizations has been arrested in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":290638,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[237,1581,21214,17807,14627,124056,23151,124055,124054,124052,104172,124053,1768,74,76,75,8074],"class_list":["post-290637","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-arrest","tag-board","tag-conspiracy","tag-federal-official","tag-federal-prosecutor","tag-law-enforcement-partner","tag-leader","tag-los-huistas","tag-molina-lopez","tag-most-prolific-cocaine-trafficker","tag-multi-year-investigation","tag-northwest-guatemala","tag-organization","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news","tag-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290637","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=290637"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290637\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/290638"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=290637"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=290637"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=290637"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}