Man is charged in scheme to mail drugs
Postal Annex owner in San Diego County is accused of packaging prescription pills for a Mexican trafficker.
SAN DIEGO — The owner of two San Diego County Postal Annex businesses is accused of partnering with a Mexican drug trafficking organization to package and ship addictive prescription drugs to customers across the country, according to charges filed in federal court in San Diego.
Since his March arrest, Lakhwinder “Victor” Singh has fought the charges; his former employee, Alejandro Nava, recently pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute oxycodone.
Nava’s guilty plea and motions filed in the case provide further details of the investigation.
Singh’s attorney declined to discuss the case.
The investigation began in 2013, after federal agents identified a drug courier who was using a shipping facility in National City to move drugs, according to court documents.
The courier was arrested at the Otay Mesa Port of Entry in December 2013 with several packages of prescription drugs and began to work with authorities in exchange for not being prosecuted. The courier told investigators about Singh’s operation, which was being run out of a Postal Plus Annex in San Diego and a Postal Annex in Lemon Grove.
Singh bought his first Postal Annex in 2001, according to a motion filed by his attorney, Robert Boyce. Singh also bought a strip mall in 2014 for $1.6 million, paying the $707,000 down payment in cash, prosecutors said.
The source told investigators that the pills came from a drug trafficking group in Mexico run by Bernardo Garcia, who allegedly dealt in drugs such as oxycodone, Xanax, methadone, amphetamine and Ritalin. Authorities have not revealed any further information about Garcia.
Customers would place online orders, and the traffickers would prepackage the purchase and hire a courier to smuggle the drugs into the United States, according to court records. Meanwhile, Garcia would email the shipping information to Singh so preprinted labels could be made.
The courier would deliver the drugs to one of the Postal Annexes, and Singh and Nava would package and ship the orders across the country, prosecutors said.
The source met with Singh and Nava on March 13, 2014, in a meeting that was monitored by authorities. According to prosecutors, Singh said that the organization had brought 20 packages of drugs the day before and that shipments usually occurred two or three times a week. He also provided the source advice, such as packing the pills flat and not bulky to better avoid detection by law enforcement, prosecutors said.
In 2015, agents had another courier under watch. On one trip, she was observed crossing into the United States from Mexico and arriving at one of Singh’s businesses. Fifteen minutes later, he left with two large mail bins and dropped them off at a post office. Investigators intercepted four flat rate parcel envelopes and found a variety of prescription drugs inside. The sender address was a bogus location.
The courier was arrested in August 2015 after she was found with a large number of pills as she crossed at the San Ysidro Port of Entry. She pleaded guilty to importing drugs and was sentenced to 10 months in prison.
On March 9, 2016, Nava was arrested at the San Ysidro Port of Entry, and Singh was arrested after investigators searched one postal annex and his home. Agents found a baggie of about 120 generic Xanax pills in a drawer under a cash register as well as preprinted shipping labels, according to court records.
When interviewed by agents, Singh initially denied knowledge of pharmaceuticals but later admitted to knowing that he was shipping “medicines,” according to court documents.
Besides being charged with conspiracy to distribute drugs, Singh is also accused of structuring $3.9 million in bank deposits from 2011 to 2014 in amounts less than $10,000 to avoid bank reporting requirements.