Washington, DC - A Mexican national was sentenced Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to 22 years in prison for her role in an international drug trafficking conspiracy to transport into the United States thousands of kilograms of cocaine and dozens of pounds of methamphetamine.
Following a seven-day jury trial in December 2019, Luz Irene Fajardo Campos, aka “La Comadre,” “La Madrina” and “La Doña,” 57, of Culiacan, Mexico, was convicted of conspiracy to distribute five kilograms or more of cocaine, and to manufacture and/or distribute 500 grams or more of methamphetamine in Mexico, Colombia, Honduras and elsewhere, knowing or intending that these substances would be unlawfully imported into the United States.
According to the evidence introduced at trial, Fajardo Campos led a drug trafficking organization with her adult children that was aligned with the Sinaloa cartel. She sourced cocaine directly from Colombia, employed pilots, and brokered the purchase of jets to fly the cocaine to Central America and Mexico. She partnered with other traffickers in the Sinaloa cartel and her children for further distribution of the cocaine into the United States. She also oversaw the importation of precursor chemicals into Mexico, which she processed into methamphetamine at a laboratory located in the desert outside Hermosillo, Mexico. She distributed this methamphetamine in Tucson, Arizona, and Jackson, Mississippi, among other locations. She also paid bribes to law enforcement officials in Mexico and Colombia to import cocaine through an international airport and attempted to bribe other public officials to secure the arrest of rival drug traffickers and the release of precursor chemicals seized at Mexican shipping ports.
“Luz Irene Fajardo Campos and her organization imported into the United States large quantities of cocaine and methamphetamine, bribing foreign law enforcement officers along the way, and then distributed those drugs across our communities,” said Assistant Attorney General Kenneth A. Polite Jr. of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division. “Her conviction and sentence demonstrate the department’s commitment to bring to justice those who pump dangerous drugs into our communities and fuel corruption in the process.”
“With this sentencing, we cut the head off of the snake,” said Special Agent in Charge Cheri Oz of the Drug Enforcement Administration’s (DEA) Phoenix Field Division. “Drug traffickers like Fajardo Campos tear at the very fabric of our communities. She made millions of dollars from pushing thousands of pounds of poison into Americans' communities while at the same time fueling violence and crime across the United States. Today, justice was served.”
In addition to the prison sentence, Fajardo Campos was also ordered to serve five years of supervised release and forfeit $18 million.
The case was investigated by the DEA’s Tucson and Mexico City Country Offices.
Trial Attorneys Cole Radovich, Kaitlin Sahni and Imani Hutty of the Criminal Division’s Narcotic and Dangerous Drug Section (NDDS) and Anthony Aminoff, formerly of NDDS, prosecuted the case with significant assistance provided by the NDDS Judicial Attachés in Bogotá, Colombia, the Justice Department’s Office of International Affairs and the Criminal Division’s Office of Enforcement Operations.
