Man allegedly joined DEA to aid traffickers

NEW YORK — A narcotics agent applied for a job with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration so he and a leader of a murderous drug-trafficking ring would become “unstoppable,” prosecutors said in court filings.

Fernando Gomez, who is awaiting trial in New York on conspiracy charges, became a DEA agent in 2011 after years of serving as a police officer outside Chicago.

He has pleaded not guilty to conspiring to distribute cocaine and smuggling firearms to members of La Organizacion de Narcotraficantes Unidos, or La ONU, a drug-trafficking enterprise in Puerto Rico that prosecutors say slaughtered its rivals and exported hundreds of kilograms of narcotics to New York City.

Federal prosecutors accuse

Gomez of becoming a criminal associate of the gang while he was in the Evanston Police Department between 2004 and 2011.

Prosecutors said Gomez grew up in Puerto Rico and had been a close friend of a La ONU member who safeguarded stash houses. Prosecutors allege that, as a police officer, Gomez would obtain weapons from criminal suspects in exchange for not arresting them.

Messages seeking comment were left with Gomez’s defense attorney and a DEA spokeswoman.

Gomez is accused of providing firearms to Jose Martinez-diaz, who, along with several other defendants, is accused of conspiring to smuggle large quantities of cocaine from Puerto Rico to New York.

Gomez also allegedly picked up $45,000 in drug money in the Boston area and transported it to Puerto Rico, receiving $5,000 for his efforts.

Then, thinking bigger, Gomez applied for a job at the DEA in 2010.

During the DEA’S screening process, Gomez told an investigator he was “unaware of any associates having involvement in criminal activities,” prosecutors wrote.