Mexican woman gets 15 years for leading drug ring, plotting to kill officer

A Mexican woman living illegally in California was sentenced to 15 years in prison for leading a drug trafficking ring that moved methamphetamine, fentanyl and heroin across the U.S. and as far away as Fiji, according to federal prosecutors. She also helped plan the killing of a Washington police officer after a large drug seizure.

Iris Adrianna Amador-Garcia, 35, of Bellflower, California, was sentenced Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Seattle. Prosecutors said she helped lead the organization with Jose Alfredo Maldonado-Ramirez, distributing large quantities of drugs and laundering the proceeds.

The organization distributed drugs in Washington and several other states, including Massachusetts, New York, Illinois, Ohio, Florida, Arkansas, Tennessee and Virginia, according to records filed in the case. Prosecutors said most of the drugs came from Amador-Garcia’s family in Mexico.

Federal prosecutors said Amador-Garcia arranged the distribution of pound quantities of methamphetamine, hundreds of thousands of fentanyl pills and large quantities of heroin. The group also shipped drugs internationally, including 19 pounds of methamphetamine that conspirators tried to mail to Fiji in August 2021.

Investigators identified the leaders of the ring as early as February 2020, and indictments were returned in the fall of 2021. During the investigation, law enforcement seized 9 pounds of methamphetamine during a traffic stop in May 2020, 30 pounds of methamphetamine in April 2021, and 57 pounds of methamphetamine and 20,000 fentanyl pills in September 2021.

Agents later searched the residence where Amador-Garcia was living with her brother and two co-conspirators, seizing a kilogram of fentanyl, 80,000 fentanyl pills and two firearms. Eight more firearms were seized at other search locations in Washington and California.

Prosecutors said Amador-Garcia also helped develop a plan to locate and kill a Centralia police officer who had seized one of the group’s large drug loads during a traffic stop.

First Assistant U.S. Attorney Charles Neil Floyd said Amador-Garcia and her associates were intercepted openly discussing the killing of the officer after the seizure.

“This criminal organization was well-organized, well-sourced, and well-connected,” Floyd said. “This defendant was prepared to take drastic measures to protect what she had built.”

The investigation involved multiple federal agencies under the Homeland Security Task Force initiative, along with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Washington.