U.S. Department of Justice press release...
NORFOLK, VA - A High Point, North Carolina woman pleaded guilty today to her role in an international drug-trafficking organization.According to court documents, Vanessa Garcia, 34, was the manager of a Mexican-based drug cartel’s North Carolina distribution point for heroin and methamphetamine.
She maintained a drug premises in High Point, where she stored wholesale amounts of drugs and recruited and supervised co-conspirators who trafficked the drugs and drug proceeds to communities outside the state, including to Hampton Roads.
Three of her co-conspirators were arrested in Virginia Beach in possession of roughly one kilogram of heroin and one kilogram of methamphetamine, which they had transported from Garcia’s stash house at her direction.
Garcia was arrested late last year in Detroit with 700 grams of heroin in her possession. After pleading guilty and being sentenced there, she was transferred to federal custody here to face this conspiracy charge.
Garcia pleaded guilty to conspiring to distribute and possess with intent to distribute one kilogram or more of heroin and 50 grams or more of methamphetamine. Garcia faces a mandatory minimum penalty of ten years and a maximum of life in prison when sentenced on Oct. 26, 2020.
*Mexican drug cartels operate throughout the United States, utilizing a network of 'cells' to distribute drugs and send most of the profits back to Mexico. They use street gangs such as MS-13 to sell the drugs. The cartels have been operating in every major U.S. city for the last 20 twenty years.
In 2010, the National Drug Intelligence Center (NDIC) reported that Mexican drug cartels were operating in “at least 1,256 cities,” in the U.S. alone.
Unfortunately, the Obama administration closed the NDIC in 2012, without explanation, and information on the cartels' operations in this country has since been hard to find.
