North Texas drug dealer, tied to student overdoses, pleads guilty to fentanyl distribution
A drug trafficker tied to juvenile fentanyl overdoses in Carrollton and Flower Mound pleaded guilty on Tuesday to distribution of a controlled substance, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas Leigha Simonton announced.
Magaly Mejia Cano, 20, was charged via criminal complaint in February.
On Tuesday, she pleaded guilty to one count of distribution of a controlled substance to a person under 21 years of age.
She is facing up to 40 years in federal prison and a $2 million fine.
“Just 2 milligrams of fentanyl can cut a young life tragically short. Peddling fentanyl pills to teenagers is one of the most callous crimes a trafficker can commit,” Simonton said in a news release. “With Ms. Cano’s plea today, we are one step closer to getting justice for parents who lost their teens to fentanyl.”
“Those who choose a path of darkness to distribute and pollute our communities with fentanyl should always be looking over their shoulder because of the relentless efforts of DEA Dallas and our law enforcement partners,” said DEA Dallas Special Agent in Charge Eduardo A. Chávez.
“Ms. Cano’s guilty plea is a clear result and warning to those that decide this same path.“
Cano is the first defendant to plead guilty in a drug distribution scheme that has been linked to at least 12 juvenile overdoses in Carrollton and Flower Mound since September. Three of the 12 overdoses were fatal, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Others charged in the conspiracy include Jason Xavier Villanueva, Luis Eduardo Navarrete, Donovan Jude Andrews, Stephan Paul Brinson, Robert Alexander Gaitan, and Rafael Soliz Jr.
Cano’s co-defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
In plea papers, Cano admitted that Navarrete regularly dealt fentanyl-laced pills to children from his Highland Drive residence. The round blue pills imprinted with M/30 resembled prescription narcotics, but were actually produced fakes.
Cano said Navarrete stored the counterfeit pills near their front door of their Carrollton home and distributed them to customers who came by the house — including a network of juvenile dealers who dealt to other minors, according to plea papers.
On at least three occasions, Cano admitted she distributed pills directly to customers, including a 16-year-old, under Navarrete’s direction, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Texas.
The Drug Enforcement Administration’s Dallas Field Office and the Carrollton Police Department conducted the investigation with help from school resource officers from the Carrollton-Farmers Branch Independent School District and the Lewisville Independent School District. Authorities said that overdoses involved students from those districts.
Assistant U.S. Attorneys Phelesa Guy and Rick Calvert are prosecuting the case.
Illicitly produced, fentanyl-laced pills often look similar to prescription pills such as Oxycontin or Percocet, but can pose significantly more danger. On the street, these pills are often referred to as “M30s” (a reference to the markings on some of the pills), “blues,” “perks,” “yerks,” “china girls,” or “TNT.”
DEA research shows that six out of 10 pills laced with fentanyl contain a potentially lethal dose.
For more information on fentanyl, visit www.dea.gov/onepill.
