Feds link two Downey men to Sinaloa cartel: One heads to prison, the other is missing
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Two men linked to a Downey residence that authorities say was a smuggling hub for Mexico’s Sinaloa drug cartel faced sentencing this year before a federal judge.One appeared last week in a Sacramento courtroom to learn his fate.The other has been missing for months.Julio Cesar Nevarez-Erunez, 24, was sentenced to nearly six years in prison on Dec.
4 after pleading guilty to a methamphetamine distribution conspiracy charge.His co-conspirator, Juan Niebla-Osuna, 28, struck a plea agreement with U.S.
attorneys for the same charge and was out on bond, but was reported missing in late August, according to a pretrial services violation petition.California Jose Landa-Rodriguez, a reputed Mexican Mafia member called “Fox,” will serve two more years in prison before being deported to Mexico under a plea agreement.According to the petition, Niebla-Osuna left his Downey residence after his court-approved curfew on Aug.
25 — the day of his scheduled sentencing in the Eastern District of California.His supervising officer hadn’t seen him in weeks; his wife told authorities she was in Mexico and hadn’t spoken with her husband since the day before he went missing; his mother noted that there were “suitcases near his bedroom” at his home, according to the petition.
His whereabouts since are a mystery.Attorneys for Niebla-Osuna did not respond to a request for comment from The Times.The Downey apartment complex where he and Nevarez-Erunez both lived sits on a quiet suburban street corner.According to a criminal complaint filed by federal prosecutors in Sacramento, in 2022 agents from Homeland Security Investigations photographed the pair carrying duffel bags and boxes suspected to contain pounds of meth.In April 2022, according to the criminal complaint, federal investigators identified the men as as distributors of heroin and methamphetamine “believed to be” sourced from ...