Inmate Sentenced for Leading Drug Conspiracy from Prison

TULSA, Okla. - An inmate in federal prison was sentenced today for Drug Conspiracy after coordinating the delivery of nearly five kilograms of cocaine to the Tulsa area, announced U.S. Attorney Clint Johnson.

U.S. District Judge John D. Russell sentenced Rafael Gonzalez, 33, to 180 months imprisonment, followed by five years of supervised release.

In 2023, the Drug Enforcement Administration began an investigation into individuals bringing large quantities of methamphetamine and cocaine from Mexico into Tulsa, Oklahoma. The investigation revealed that Gonzalez coordinated with other inmates and people outside of prison to distribute methamphetamine and cocaine. Court documents show that he coordinated the delivery of nearly five kilograms of cocaine to the Tulsa area and drug proceeds to various locations in Texas.

Gonzalez will remain in custody pending transfer to the U.S. Bureau of Prisons. This sentence is to run consecutively to Gonzalez's previous federal case where he was conspiring with others to distribute methamphetamine from the Department of Corrections.

This prosecution is part of the Homeland Security Task Force (HSTF) initiative established by Executive Order 14159, Protecting the American People Against Invasion. The HSTF is a whole-of-government partnership dedicated to eliminating criminal cartels, foreign gangs, transnational criminal organizations, and human smuggling and trafficking rings operating in the United States and abroad. Through historic interagency collaboration, the HSTF directs the full might of United States law enforcement towards identifying, investigating, and prosecuting the full spectrum of crimes committed by these organizations, which have long fueled violence and instability within our borders. In performing this work, the HSTF places special emphasis on investigating and prosecuting those engaged in child trafficking or other crimes involving children. The HSTF further utilizes all available tools to prosecute and remove the most violent criminal aliens from the United States. HSTF Tulsa comprises agents and officers from the Drug Enforcement Administration, Homeland Security Investigations, the Internal Revenue Service - Criminal Investigations, the FBI, the Bureau of Prisons, the Tulsa Police Department, and the Tulsa County Sheriff's Department. The prosecution was led by Assistant U.S. Attorney David Nasar with the United States Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Oklahoma