Seattle-area drug trafficker sentenced to five more years in prison after being caught with 13 kilos of cocaine

A Mexican national previously residing in Renton, Washington, has been sentenced to an additional five years in federal prison after being caught trafficking drugs while on the run from an earlier sentence, federal authorities announced Wednesday.

Humberto Lopez Rodriguez, 31, was originally sentenced to five years in prison for drug trafficking but failed to report to the Federal Correctional Institution in Lompoc, California. Instead, he was arrested in December 2023 while heading back to Washington from California with 13 kilograms of cocaine and a loaded firearm in his vehicle.

At a sentencing hearing this week, US District Judge Tana Lin ordered that the new sentence be served consecutively with his previous term. “You committed this crime after you failed to surrender to corrections…. You’ll be deported after serving your sentence and the American Dream is dead for you,” Judge Lin told Lopez Rodriguez.

“This defendant continued to deal drugs while on pretrial release and later was arrested in a car with a drug load when he should have been serving his federal sentence,” said Acting US Attorney Teal Luthy Miller. “Such conduct, ignoring our laws and criminal justice system, appropriately results in additional prison time.”

Lopez Rodriguez was among 16 defendants charged in a multi-agency investigation into a drug trafficking ring with ties to Mexico and Colombia. The probe culminated in June 2024, when federal and local law enforcement executed 24 search and arrest warrants. At the time of those raids, Lopez Rodriguez was already behind bars following his December arrest.

The sweeping investigation, led by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Seattle Police Department, and IRS Criminal Investigation, uncovered a vast cache of illegal drugs and firearms. Authorities seized 84,000 fentanyl pills, over 1 kilogram of fentanyl powder, 32 kilograms of cocaine, 15 kilograms of methamphetamine, nearly 3 kilograms of heroin, 18 firearms, and $71,000 in cash drug proceeds.

Five individuals in the case have already entered guilty pleas:

• Ramon Duarte Garcia, 38, a Mexican national living in Kent, WA, was sentenced in May 2025 to 10 years in prison.
• Curtis McDaniel, 56, a U.S. citizen from Tukwila, WA, was sentenced to five years.
• Jose Luis Villafañe Osorio, 36, a Colombian national living in Plainfield, NJ, is scheduled for sentencing on August 13, 2025.
• Manuel Garcia Hernandez, 39, a Mexican national from Renton, WA, is set to be sentenced on September 9, 2025.

In arguing for a six-year sentence, prosecutors cited the ongoing overdose crisis in King County. “Drug overdoses resulted in 1,044 deaths in King County in 2024,” prosecutors wrote. “Through not quite seven months of 2025, there have been 541 confirmed overdose deaths, with another 47 suspected.”

While fentanyl remains the primary cause of fatal overdoses, cocaine was involved in 26 percent of deaths, often in combination with fentanyl.

The case is part of Operation Take Back America, a nationwide Justice Department initiative aimed at dismantling cartels and transnational criminal organizations. The operation aligns efforts from the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces (OCDETF) and Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN).

The investigation received support from multiple agencies, including the DEA, Seattle, Renton, and Centralia Police Departments, Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), Washington State Patrol, Pierce County and Valley SWAT teams and the HUD Office of Inspector General.

International partners, including the Colombian National Police and the Colombian Prosecutor’s Office, also played key roles. The Justice Department’s attaché office in Bogotá provided critical coordination.

Assistant US Attorneys Joe Silvio and C. Andrew Colasurdo of the Western District of Washington are prosecuting the cases.