A former Portland man was sentenced to 11 years and three months in prison on Friday for leading a large-scale narcotics trafficking operation that delivered more than 100,000 counterfeit prescription pills laced with fentanyl across Oregon and Washington.
A federal prosecutor claims Luis Antonio Beltran Arredondo, 35, and his crew laundered millions of dollars in cocaine revenues via the modest Mazatlán Beauty Salon in Tualatin, even after the business was officially closed.
According to Assistant US Attorney Peter Sax, he also disguised narcotics income by purchasing nine residential homes for more than $4.6 million in Portland, Beaverton, Vancouver, North Las Vegas, and Henderson, Nevada, over an eight-month period.
Beltran Arredondo, who was in the United States illegally following a previous deportation, had relocated to Las Vegas by the time of his arrest. He was also on bond at the time, facing felony narcotics trafficking charges in California, Sax said.
“I realize the harm to society that has been caused by this crime,” Beltran Arredondo told U.S. District Judge Michael H. Simon. “There’s no way to justify my actions.”
The investigation was launched in October 2021 by agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration in Portland, in collaboration with the FBI, Homeland Security Investigations, Tigard police, state police, and the IRS. According to Sax, they wiretapped Beltran Arredondo’s phone as well as two of his distributors’.
Between October 2021 and February 2022, investigators stopped alleged couriers and recovered about 41 pounds of methamphetamine, 26 kilograms of heroin, 115,000 counterfeit oxycodone pills laced with fentanyl, and more than $348,000 in cash, according to Sax.
Beltran Arredondo and his girlfriend, Jaqueline Paola Rodrigues Barrientos, laundered money from drug trafficking at Mazatlan Beauty Salon in Tualatin.
Rodrigues Barrientos deposited more than $3.5 million in cash into her salon accounts in 2021, according to the prosecution.
Beltran Arredondo pleaded guilty in June to conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute heroin and fentanyl, as well as conspiracy to launder money. He is the last of twelve people charged to be sentenced.
Sax pushed for a somewhat longer term of 11 years and eight months in jail, while defense lawyer Michele Kohler asked for a 10-year sentence.
“At the peak of his powers, this defendant was a millionaire many times over,” Sax said, and caused extensive damage to his family and this community.
Kohler acknowledged that Beltran Arredondo was a drug distributor, but she claimed he only had two customers, made drug runs from California to Washington state, and exclusively sold heroin. She also urged the judge to consider that forfeiting all of his residential property assets is already a severe punishment.
Beltran Arredondo turned to drug sales to support his family, she explained. His father was slain when he was 16, and he worked two jobs while attending Tualatin High School before dropping out in his senior year. He had initially refused pleas from local associates to sell drugs but “was eventually worn down” and consented to work as a courier transferring cocaine from California to Washington state, she added.
Kohler stated in her sentencing statement that he had a “great sense of guilt” for using his wife and her nephew to launder his narcotics income through their bank account to purchase the residential properties.
According to his lawyer, he wants to receive a high school equivalency diploma and learn a trade while in federal prison that he will be able to employ when he is released and deported to Mexico.