Joint federal and local law enforcement teams arrested Thursday seven persons who are allegedly engaged in distributing methamphetamine or \u201cice\u201d in the CNMI.<\/p>\n
The suspects were brought before U.S. District Court for the NMI Magistrate Judge Heather L. Kennedy on Friday for their initial appearance hearing. Kennedy unsealed the cases.<\/p>\n
Arrested were Daniel A. Castro, 32; Vicente S. Palacios, 38; Bao Zhong Wang, 46; Hong Wang, 40; Le Xiang Chen, 63; Xing Bo Fang, 46; and Yu Hua Wang, 46.<\/p>\n
Sources said that Daniel Castro is a brother of police detective Esteven Castro, who was previously assigned at the Department of Public Safety\u2019s Narcotics Section.<\/p>\n
According to the U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office, the suspects were arrested after a complaint and indictment were filed against them.<\/p>\n
The operation was conducted by agents of the Drug Enforcement Administration, Department of Public Safety, and the CNMI Customs and Border Protection.<\/p>\n
As of the court\u2019s close of business late Friday afternoon, only Hong Wang\u2019s case was available for public viewing. At the time, court employees were still in the process of unsealing the cases of the six other suspects.<\/p>\n
In Hong Wang\u2019s case, Drug Enforcement Administration special agent Jacqueline R. Gordon stated in a criminal complaint that a confidential source told DEA agents and Task Force officers on Jan. 11, 2013, that he\/she bought about 30 grams of \u201cice\u201d per month from Wang from September 2010 until November 2010 at $300 per gram.<\/p>\n
Gordon said that on March 6, 2013, agents with the DEA Saipan Post of Duty and DPS talked with the confidential source to prepare for a controlled purchase of \u201cice\u201d from Wang.<\/p>\n
At the agents\u2019 instruction, the confidential source placed a recorded call to Wang\u2019s cell phone, during which the suspect agreed to meet at the American Memorial Park for the transaction.<\/p>\n
At 1:08pm, agents saw Wang\u2019s Toyota Corolla car arrive at the parking lot of the park.<\/p>\n
The confidential source, who was given $2,400 in DEA funds, entered Wang\u2019s car and bought \u201cice\u201d in 10 small baggies.<\/p>\n
Gordon said that on Nov. 15, 2013, the DEA lab confirmed that the substance bought from Wang was methamphetamine.<\/p>\n
Saipan Tribune learned that an indictment was filed against Castro, charging him with four counts of distributing \u201cice\u201d on May 29, 2013, June 20, 2013, Nov. 6, 2013, and Feb. 14, 2014.<\/p>\n
An indictment charged Palacios with one count of distributing \u201cice\u201d on Oct. 11, 2012.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Joint federal and local law enforcement teams arrested Thursday seven persons who are allegedly engaged…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[268,162,26,93],"class_list":["post-28347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-american-memorial-park","tag-car","tag-cnmi","tag-district-court"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28347","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28347"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28347\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}