Cocaine Smuggler Made Cross-Border Runs 2-3 Times a Week
Cocaine Smuggler Made Cross-Border Runs 2-3 Times a Week
A Washington state man who used his wife and children to help him smuggle cocaine into Canada has been sentenced to 10 years in prison.
Estevan James Olmos, 40, had his first run-in with U.S. Border Patrol agents on Sept. 6, 2011, when he was spotted dropping off a passenger who attempted to run across the border into Canada.
Olmos claimed he had just met the person at a party and agreed to give him a ride. Later, Olmos admitted that he had previously brought people to the border, charging them at least $500 for the ride.
Olmos was previously identified by U.S. Homeland Security Investigation agents as a person of interest in ongoing narcotics smuggling investigations, so agents decided to canvass the area for any storage lockers rented in Olmos’s name.
They found one at Pioneer Storage LLC in Everson, Wash., south of Sumas, and brought a drug-sniffing dog to the business on Sept. 8, 2011. The dog alerted at unit A15.
After obtaining a search warrant, officers searched the unit and found about 43 kilograms of cocaine in 32 packages in suitcases. The bags were tagged with the name of Olmos’s wife.
The owner of the property said that the previous evening a woman and her children had moved suitcases into the storage unit.
Investigators seized the cocaine and replaced it with fake drugs. Later that evening, a man came to the unit to retrieve the cocaine. He was arrested and told police that he was going to be paid $5,000 to bring the drugs across the border. He said he got the key to the storage unit from a man he met in Bellingham.
Olmos was arrested Sept. 10, 2011, at Northwoods Casino in Sumas.