Drug kingpin gets 4 life sentences for trafficking meth in Oklahoma, Missouri

TULSA, Okla. – A California drug kingpin gets life for directing a continuing criminal enterprise by organizing and directing at least three separate meth conspiracies in Oklahoma and Missouri, announced U.S. Attorney Clint Johnson.

U.S. District Judge John C. Coughenour sentenced Luis Alfredo Jacobo, 32, of Bakersfield, California, to four life sentences in federal prison, one each for a count of continuing criminal enterprise and three counts of drug conspiracy. Judge Coughenour further sentenced Jacobo to four years each on 21 counts of unlawful use of a communication facility. All sentences are to run concurrently.

“Luis Alfredo Jacobo led a drug enterprise responsible for bringing countless amounts of meth into the state of Oklahoma from California,” said U.S. Attorney Clint Johnson. “The life sentences handed down today should put those who pedal poison in our communities on notice. The U.S. Department of Justice together with our law enforcement partners are organized and will prosecute to the full extent of the law.”

“Drug trafficking affects countless lives, whether it’s in our Oklahoma neighborhoods or 1,500 miles away in California. It impacts the safety and security of all our lives,” said Eduardo A. Chavez, Special Agent in Charge of the DEA Dallas Field Division, that covers DEA operations in Oklahoma. “This sentence reflects our continued resolve to partner with all our law-enforcement counterparts to fight greed, violence, and drug addiction.”

“The weight of this successful investigation and prosecution cannot be overestimated. Luis Alfredo Jacobo is responsible for putting hundreds of pounds of meth onto the streets of Oklahoma. For nearly three decades, meth has remained one of the biggest drug threats impacting Oklahoma, including links to violent crime, theft, addiction and more than 700 overdose deaths in 2022, alone. My agency is committed to continue working with our federal partners to target and dismantle these criminal trafficking organizations who put the health and safety of our citizens at risk.” —-Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics Director, Donnie Anderson

Using his Mexican sources of supply and Bakersfield, California, as a base of operations, Jacobo managed, supervised, and organized more than a dozen individuals in California, Northeast Oklahoma, and Southwest Missouri in an enterprise that spanned over five years and involved at least three drug conspiracies operating in and around the Northern District of Oklahoma.

Through countless communications between the conspirators, Jacobo set prices, determined methods of delivery and payment, and approved any suggestions made about the groups’ operations.

From May 2016 to Sept. 2021, Jacobo received bulk shipments of meth to his home base in Bakersfield, California. From there, Jacobo directed that the meth be sent via U.S. mail or driven in vehicles to the groups in Oklahoma and Missouri, sometimes in quantities of up to 200 pounds at a time. Coconspirators would drive large amounts of cash back to California, send money through money remitters, or mail cash payments back to Jacobo and to others at Jacobo’s direction. The coconspirators sometimes mailed as much as $100,000 cash at a time from Oklahoma to California.

The three conspiracies were run by Jacobo’s regional managers in northeastern Oklahoma. The managers employed, with Jacobo’s knowledge, distributors and sub distributors to help sell Jacobo’s drugs. Jacobo even met and gave direction to many of the distributors and sub distributors.

From May 2016 to Dec. 2018, one drug conspiracy operated in Bakersfield and later in and around Grove, Oklahoma. A second drug conspiracy also worked out of Grove from Sept. 2018 to Aug. 2019. Finally, a third drug conspiracy operated from Sept. 2018 to March 2021 in and around Grove and southwestern Missouri.

During trial, federal prosecutors presented evidence that included numerous communications and countless money exchanges related to the conspiracies as well as evidence collected when law enforcement executed search warrants.

For example, on Oct. 12, 2020, agents and officers with the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs and Grove Police Department opened a storage unit in Grove and discovered 231 pounds of methamphetamine and more than $465,000 in U.S. currency. The storage unit was rented for defendant Johnson to store meth for redistribution. That same weekend in 2020, law enforcement also executed search warrants on houses in Grove where codefendants stored drugs and drug proceeds.

Three days after the 231 pounds of meth was located, officers arrested codefendant Tony Garcia driving in Oklahoma City with 30 pounds of meth and a loaded 9 mm handgun. Text messages in Garcia’s phone show that he received instructions from Jacobo just prior to the trip about where and when to distribute the meth to Johnson and others in Oklahoma.

During the trial the government highlighted the sheer number of Jacobo’s coconspirators who testified against Jacobo and repeated many of the same details about how Jacobo’s extensive drug business operated, including that Jacobo directed members of his organization to send cars packed full of meth to Northeast Oklahoma and cars packed full of money back to him in Bakersfield.

Jacobo’s conviction resulted from the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force Operation “Pullin Chains,” led by the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the Drug Enforcement Administration. OCDETF identifies, disrupts, and dismantles the highest-level drug traffickers, money launderers, gangs, and transnational criminal organizations that threaten the United States by using a prosecutor-led, intelligence-driven, multi-agency approach that leverages the strengths of federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies against criminal networks. Additional information about the OCDETF Program can be found on the Department of Justice’s OCDETF webpage

Jacobo will remain in the custody of the Federal Marshal Service pending transfer to a U.S. Bureau of Prisons facility to be determined in the near future.

The Drug Enforcement Administration, Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs, Bureau of Indian Affairs, City of Miami Police Department, Grove Police Department, Quapaw Tribal Marshals Service, Bakersfield Police Department, Kern County Sheriff’s Office, the United States Postal Inspection Service, and the Oklahoma District 13 Drug and Violent Crime Task Force conducted the investigation.

Assistant U.S. Attorneys Thomas E. Duncombe, Nathan E. Michel, and Melody N. Nelson prosecuted the case.