Three foreign nationals\u2014two men and a woman\u2014were recently sentenced to federal prison for conspiring to possess methamphetamine, or \u201cice,\u201d with the intent to distribute and conspiring to maintain a drug-involved premises.<\/p>\n
According to a U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office news release yesterday, Huaishu Wang, 40, was convicted in the U.S. District Court for the NMI of\u00a0conspiracy to possess methamphetamine with the intent to distribute and was sentenced to\u00a0188 months\u2019 imprisonment, three years supervised release, 100 hours of community service, and a $100 mandatory assessment.\u00a0<\/p>\n
His co-defendant, Hongjie Li, 48, was convicted of\u00a0conspiracy to possess methamphetamine with the intent to distribute, and was sentenced to\u00a057 months\u2019 imprisonment, three years supervised release, 50 hours of community service, and a $100 mandatory assessment.<\/p>\n
The third co-defendant, Yongbing Ni, 54, was convicted of\u00a0conspiracy to maintain a drug-involved premises and sentenced to\u00a010 months\u2019 imprisonment, three years of supervised release, and a $100 mandatory assessment.\u00a0<\/p>\n
These defendants were also ordered to report to a U.S. Immigration Officer for deportation proceedings as a condition of their supervised release.\u00a0The news release did not state the nationalities of the three defendants.<\/p>\n
On May 3, 2022, Li claimed a package mailed from Canada to a private mail facility on Saipan. The package contained 858 grams of methamphetamine. Li transported the package to a residence, where she lived with Wang and Ni.\u00a0 After the package was delivered to the residence, federal and local law enforcement agents executed a search warrant and discovered the three co-defendants were working together to distribute methamphetamine across the island.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Inside the residence, agents discovered 214 grams of methamphetamine packaged in 46 baggies, an additional 15 grams of methamphetamine, digital scales, three BB-guns similar in appearance to semiautomatic 9mm and .45 caliber handguns, an Airsoft rifle similar in appearance to a 5.56mm rifle, and $68,408 in U.S. currency.\u00a0 The street value of the drugs was at least $540,000.<\/p>\n
Shawn N. Anderson, U.S. Attorney for the Districts of Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands, stated, \u201cOur office is committed to aggressively prosecuting drug offenses in the CNMI. Substantial penalties apply to many of these crimes. Considering the effects of methamphetamine on our communities, we must make every effort toward deterrence and accountability.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSynthetic drugs, such as methamphetamine, are easy to manufacture, highly addictive, and responsible for the growing number of deaths in our communities,\u201d said DEA Honolulu District Office assistant special agent in charge Victor Vazquez. \u201cIndividuals who seek to profit on these dangerous drugs and distribute them will be targeted and held accountable.\u201d<\/p>\n
This investigation was led by the Drug Enforcement Administration Los Angeles Field Division, Guam Resident Office, Saipan Post of Duty.\u00a0 The case was prosecuted by Albert Flores, Jr., and Garth Backe, assistant U.S. Attorneys in the District of the Northern Mariana Islands. (PR\/Saipan Tribune)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Three foreign nationals\u2014two men and a woman\u2014were recently sentenced to federal prison for conspiring to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":387210,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-387209","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387209","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\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=387209"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387209\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/387210"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=387209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=387209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=387209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}