Murder suspects face federal trafficking charges
Trio accused of selling meth
A brother, half-brother and cousin who police say killed two men and wounded two others over a drug debt last year are now facing federal charges in connection with running large quantities of methamphetamine from California to New Mexico since February 2015 — some of which agents say they sold at a South Valley ice cream shop or “paleteria.”
Documents previously filed in state District Court have said the men, who were all born in Sinaloa, Mexico, are suspected of having ties
to the Sinaloa Cartel, but recently unsealed federal court documents don’t mention the link. Immigration authorities have not responded to questions about whether the men were in the United States legally.
However, the federal documents do lay out a long-term investigation into the drug trafficking organization that agents say Eder Ortiz-Parra, 25, his half-brother Edwin Ortiz-Parra, 26, and their cousin Rafael GonzalezParra, 26, ran.
All three were arrested last March and have been charged with two counts of murder as well as several other charges in the quadruple shooting in a Southeast Albuquerque home in August 2016. Eder Ortiz-Parra is also charged with murder in a December shooting death on Albuquerque’s West Side.
But agents with the Drug Enforcement Administration had begun investigating the drug trafficking ring, and even tapped Gonzalez-Parra’s phone, months before the murders.
Last month, on Sept. 21, authorities indicted the three men — who have remained in jail without bond since their March arrests — on federal drug trafficking and conspiracy charges. Attorneys representing each defendant either did not respond to emails or said they had no comment on the case.
Five others were also charged in the drug trafficking ring.
Undercover tactics
In June 2016, agents intercepted Gonzalez-Parra’s cellphone text messages for two weeks until he stopped using the phone, according to a search warrant affidavit. And they had previously “conducted approximately three controlled drug purchases” from him.
They said these tactics helped them identify Gonzalez-Parra as a drug trafficker and an active member of the group agents called the OrtizParra Drug Trafficking Organization. He also faces charges in Arizona for being caught with about 5 pounds of meth in Edwin Ortiz-Parra’s vehicle.
It is unclear from the documents if agents continued their surveillance of Gonzalez-Parra and his cousins after mid-June, and DEA officials would not comment on the case when reached by the Journal last week.
But two months later, Albuquerque police say the men shot and killed Daniel Chumacero, 24, and Juan Carlos Saenz-Ponce, 23, and wounded two other men over $7,500 worth of bad cocaine.
And in mid-September, Carmen “Celeste” Velasquez, 33, a woman with ties to the slain men, was found dead from a gunshot wound to her neck by the side of the road in Taos County. No one has been charged in her slaying.
Then, in mid-December, police say Eder Ortiz-Parra shot and killed Gilberto Medina-Pena, 32, over a drug debt on Albuquerque’s West Side.
That same month a DEA confidential source bought about a pound of meth from him but it is unclear if this transaction happened before or after the killing.
Case intensifies
It wasn’t until early February 2017 that the investigation into the group heated up when agents began intercepting Eder Ortiz-Parra’s phone calls, according to the search warrant affidavit.
That’s how they knew he had instructed his halfbrother’s father, Miguel Avila-Moreno, to deliver a $2,800 pound of meth to a buyer in the parking lot of Michoacana Del Sur — a paleteria or ice-cream shop in the South Valley, according to the affidavit. In the affidavit, the agent refers to Avila-Moreno as “Avila,” and Yuren Miranda Vasquez, who he said was buying the drugs, as “Miranda.”
“In sum, based on my training and experience, as well as my familiarity with this investigation, there is probable cause to believe that, on February 11, 2017, Eder arranged to sell Miranda one pound of methamphetamine, which Avila retrieved and delivered to Miranda pursuant to Eder’s instructions,” the agent wrote in the affidavit. “There is also probable cause to believed that Eder directed Avila to provide $2,800 of the proceeds to Edwin, the leader of the DTO (drug trafficking organization).”
Both Avila-Moreno and Miranda Vasquez have been indicted on drug charges along with the Ortiz-Parras.
Three other associates, Cristina Ornelas-Aragon, Cesar Omar de la RochaAvila and Adolfo CelayaLozoya, also face federal charges for roles in the organization.
According to the affidavit, in a call intercepted by agents, Ornelas-Aragon ordered 8 ounces — which she referred to in code as “tacos” — to be delivered to a South Valley house in late February 2017. Video surveillance from a camera near the house shows Eder Ortiz-Parra meeting her outside the house in her vehicle.
After the meeting, agents say Ornelas-Aragon and another man drove the drugs west on Interstate 40 until agents asked New Mexico State Police to pull them over for a traffic stop near Grants. That’s when they found the 8 ounces of meth packed into a black cardboard box.
And according to the indictment, over the past couple of years CelayaLozoya had helped the Ortiz-Parras bring at least 30 pounds of meth from California to New Mexico and Rocha-Avila had helped them distribute meth.
The investigation into the organization culminated on March 7, 2017, when Eder Ortiz-Parra, Edwin Edsel Ortiz-Parra, and Gonzalez-Parra were taken into custody on murder charges after two SWAT standoffs around Albuquerque. Eder OrtizParra was arrested in a Southwest Albuquerque home that agents had previously identified as where the organization stored and sorted drugs.