NORTH DAKOTA
A Colombian fentanyl trafficker, who was scheduled to go to trial on Oct. 1, plead guilty Friday to drug trafficking and money laundering charges as the leader and organizer of an international continuing criminal enterprise, according to authorities.
Daniel Vivas Ceron operated the drug organization while in prison in Quebec, Canada, officials stated.
The enterprise involved distributing fentanyl and other similar substances from Canada and China into the United States where some of those drugs resulted in 15 overdoses including 11, which caused serious bodily injuries, and four, which resulted in fatal overdoses.
Ceron, 38, of Colombia, pleaded guilty before U.S. Magistrate Judge Alice R. Senechal in Fargo, North Dakota, to continuing criminal enterprise, conspiracy to distribute controlled substances and controlled substance analogues resulting in serious bodily injury and death and money laundering.
Vivas Ceron faces a statutory maximum sentence of life in prison. The date of sentencing has not been set.
At the plea hearing, Vivas Ceron admitted that between 2013 and 2017, Chinese sources of supply shipped several hundred pounds of fentanyl and fentanyl analogues to the United States and Canada.
Vivas Ceron and members of his conspiracy imported these opioids into the United States and distributed them to their customers around the country.
Vivas Ceron ran his drug trafficking organization from a jail cell in Canada, and he concealed his identity to facilitate the conspiracy by using aliases, encrypted WICKR accounts, and numerous email addresses.
Vivas Ceron and his co-conspirators’ distribution in Canada and the United States resulted in 15 overdoses in North Dakota, Oregon, New Jersey, North Carolina, and Rhode Island, including four fatal overdoses, one of which was Grand Forks resident 18-year-old Bailey Henke.
“From a Canadian jail cell, Daniel Vivas Ceron directed a deadly drug ring that fueled the opioid epidemic and took the lives of four Americans,” said Assistant Attorney General Brian Benczkowski. “Today’s guilty plea brings some measure of justice for the victims and families that fell prey to Vivas Ceron’s dangerous organization and its tragic track record of spreading addiction and abuse.”
“My heart goes out to the friends and families of those who lost their lives as a result of the greed and selfishness of all of the individuals involved in this case,” said Special Agent in Charge Brad Bench of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Seattle, Washington. “The amount of cooperation between HSI and our state, federal, and international partners was invaluable to halting the deadly actions of this complex drug organization. While we will never know how many lives are saved because of our efforts, we hope we are able to provide just a small bit of peace to the families whose lives are forever changed as a result of the offender’s careless actions.”
Following his deportation from Canada, Vivas Ceron was taken into custody at the Tocumen International Airport in Panama City, Panama on July 17, 2015.
On Jan. 25, 2017, Vivas Ceron was extradited to the United States from Panama, according to officials.
This case is part of “Operation Denial,” an Organized Crime and Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF) investigation into the international trafficking of fentanyl and other lethal drugs, and was significantly aided by the national and international coordination led by the multi-agency Special Operations Division (SOD) near Washington, DC, as part of “Operation Deadly Merchant.”
The investigation started in North Dakota on Jan. 3, 2015, with the overdose death in Grand Forks, North Dakota, of Bailey Henke.
Additional defendants charged in federal court in this investigation include:
District of North Dakota
This case is being investigated by HSI, U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, U.S. Postal Inspection Service, Grand Forks Narcotics Task Force, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Portland Oregon Police Bureau – Drugs and Vice Division, Portland HIDTA Interdiction Task Force, Oregon State Police and the Grand Forks Police Department.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Christopher C. Myers is prosecuting the cases in North Dakota; Assistant U.S. Attorney Scott Kerin is prosecuting the cases in the District of Oregon and assisting as a Special Assistant U.S Attorney in North Dakota. Acting Assistant Deputy Chief Adrienne Rose and Trial Attorney Kaitlin Sahni are prosecuting the case from the Criminal Division’s Narcotic and Dangerous Drug Section of the Justice Department.
Based upon the change of plea, Judge Senechal will issue a report and recommendation to Federal District Court Judge John P. Bailey of the Northern District of West Virginia, to formally accept Vivas Ceron’s guilty plea.
An indictment is merely an allegation, and all defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.