Five Arkansas Residents Sentenced for Federal Drug Crimes Following Multi-Agency Investigation
MUSKOGEE, OKLAHOMA – The United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Oklahoma has announced that five Arkansas residents have been sentenced for their roles in a major drug trafficking operation that extended from Arkansas into eastern Oklahoma.
The leader of the organization, Rito Alvarado Gomez, 37, received a 15-year, 8-month (188-month) federal prison sentence after being convicted of Drug Conspiracy. His co-defendants were sentenced between March 25, 2025, and May 6, 2025, on related charges.
Three individuals were sentenced for Distribution of Methamphetamine:
Ricardo Villeda, 26, sentenced to 151 months;
Jose Alberto Alvarado Gomez, 34, sentenced to 58 months;
Iris Yosellin Luna-Herrera, 27, sentenced to 41 months.
Another co-defendant, Ana Isabel Frayre Barboza, 38, was sentenced to 15 months for Misprision of Felony (failure to report a felony).
According to investigators, the drug trafficking activity began in 2018 and continued until March 2024, during which the group trafficked more than 9 kilograms of methamphetamine into the Eastern District of Oklahoma and returned to collect payments from buyers.
The case resulted from a collaborative investigation involving the DEA McAlester Resident Office, Bureau of Indian Affairs, FBI-Texarkana, Homeland Security Investigations-Texarkana, Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics, 8th North and 9th West Drug Task Forces from Arkansas, as well as the Arkansas State Police, Hope Police Department, and McCurtain County Sheriff’s Office.
Chief U.S. District Judge Ronald A. White presided over the hearings. Four of the defendants remain in the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service, awaiting transfer to federal prison. Barboza is scheduled to report on June 2, 2025, to begin serving her sentence.
The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Erin Cornell and Jordan Howanitz, under the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces (OCDETF) program—an initiative that targets major drug trafficking and transnational criminal networks using a coordinated, intelligence-driven approach.
