Yakima Meth Trafficker Gets 292 Months in Prison

The precursor drug purchase would have been enough to produce from 80 to 140 pounds of the spindarella for Yakima spinsters and kids.

September 6, 2008

YAKIMA WA NEWS -- Jose Luis Manzo, 32-year-old brother of Jesus Manzo the leader of the dismantled Manzo Drug Trafficking Organization, was sentenced yesterday to 292 months in prison for distributing methamphetamine and conspiring to possess pseudoephedrine with the intent to manufacture methamphetamine. Jose Luis Manzo also will be on five years supervised probation upon his release from prison. The Manzo Drug Trafficking Organization was considered a large-scale distributor of methamphetamine in the Yakima area.

During February of 2007, Jose Luis Manzo delivered 1/2 pound of meth to a DEA informant in a parking lot in Yakima's West Valley neighborhood. In April 2007, Manzo organized an attempted purchase of 86 cases of pseudoephedrine, a key precursor ingredient in the manufacture of crystal meth. The quantity was enough to produce from 80 to 140 pounds of the spindarella for spinsters and kids. The delivery was to go down at a hotel in Clackamas, Oregon. Federal agents raided the hotel room, finding Manzo and other suspects with $301,110 in currency. At the time of the arrest, Manzo was under federal court supervision for a bulk cash smuggling conviction in the Western District of Washington. That conviction was the result of Manzo and a relative previously attempting to transport more than $140,000 in currency into Canada near Blaine, Washington.

Lastly, the Court ordered forfeiture of $301,110 to the United States, which are 80% of the net funds seized during his arrest. The forfeited funds will be utilized for expenditures incurred by the investigation, and will be shared between the joint Organized Crime and Drug Enforcement Task Force. The task force, led by the United States DEA and the ATF, and was assisted by the Yakima City/County Narcotics Unit, Washington State Patrol and Oregon State Police. Jose Luis Manzo's spindarella trafficking case was prosecuted by Shawn Anderson, Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Washington. Good job!

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