ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KRQE) – The man at the center of an Albuquerque case involving drugs, cash, human smuggling, and exotic animals has been sentenced to federal prison.
David Mendoza-Enriquez, a Mexican national illegally present in the United States, will spend 17 years in federal prison for leading a drug trafficking organization responsible for moving tens of thousands of fentanyl pills from Mexico into Albuquerque, along with smuggling migrants and importing illegal wildlife.
Law enforcement initiated an undercover investigation in 202 that resulted in multiple controlled purchases directly from Mendoza, including a 2022 transaction involving nearly 5,000 fentanyl pills at his restaurant, Taco-H, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Mexico…