The lead defendant in an indictment alleging that a drug trafficking organization shipped thousands of pounds of methamphetamine all over the world — sometimes hidden inside consumer and industrial products — arrived in Los Angeles Friday after being extradited from France.
Jose Guillermo Grosso Gamez, 41, of Sinaloa, Mexico, is expected to be arraigned Monday in Los Angeles federal court, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Grosso — who allegedly used various aliases, including “Greenhills” and “Martinez Asociados” — is charged with brokering and organizing meth shipments to destinations around the world. To evade law enforcement, Grosso allegedly concealed drug shipments in industrial machinery and bribed government officials in Mexico, according to federal prosecutors.
According to an eight-count indictment returned by a Los Angeles federal grand jury in 2018, Grosso attempted to ship about 265 pounds of meth from Mexico to Australia concealed in computer equipment. The shipment was intercepted by U.S. law enforcement in Memphis, Tennessee.
During the investigation, law enforcement in other countries also seized meth allegedly shipped by Grosso. Those seizures included about 725 pounds of meth hidden inside an industrial ore crusher and an asphalt roller in Manzanillo, Mexico, and about 185 pounds of meth found on a rooster ranch in the Philippines, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
The investigation also led to the discovery of a laboratory in Pomona that converted meth into crystal form and the seizure of more than 12 metric tons of amphetamine powder in Guatemala, prosecutors said.
Grosso is the third defendant to be taken into custody on the indictment that charges 17 defendants, most of whom are believed to be in Mexico. An Inland Empire man who was previously arrested died in December. The other defendant — Milton Eduardo Aquino Castaneda, 51, of the Harbor City neighborhood in Los Angeles — was arrested in November after he entered the United States from Mexico.
If convicted of all charges, Grosso would face a potential sentence of decades in federal prison.