Date: Nov. 26, 2024 Contact: newsroom@ci.irs.gov Pittsburgh, PA — A resident of New Castle, Pennsylvania, was sentenced in federal court to 37 months of incarceration, to be followed by four years of supervised release, on his conviction of violating a federal narcotics law, United States Attorney Eric G. Olshan announced today. Senior United States District Judge Arthur J. Schwab imposed the sentence on Luis Rivera Otero. According to information presented to the Court, Rivera Otero was a member of an organized drug trafficking group that obtained kilogram quantities of cocaine via United States Postal Service parcel from Puerto Rico and then sold them in western Pennsylvania and elsewhere as part of an ongoing drug trafficking conspiracy. Specifically, Rivera Otero was responsible for retrieving five parcels containing cocaine and then delivering them to a co-conspirator in return for payment. Assistant United States Attorney Carl J. Spindler prosecuted this case on behalf of the United States. The Drug Enforcement Administration conducted the investigation leading to Rivera Otero’s conviction in this case in close collaboration with the Lawrence County High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA) Task Force, United States Postal Inspection Service, Internal Revenue Service – Criminal Investigation, Federal Bureau of Investigation, New Castle City Police Department, Ellwood City Police Department, Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General, United States Department of Agriculture, Union Township Police Department, Pittsburgh Bureau of Police, Homeland Security Investigations, and Pennsylvania State Police. This prosecution was part of an Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces (OCDETF) investigation. 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, multiagency approach that leverages the strengths of federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies against criminal networks. Lawrence County is one of six western Pennsylvania counties officially designated as a High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area by the White House’s Office of National Drug Control Policy. The county received its HIDTA designation in July 2022, allowing it to receive dedicated federal resources to coordinate federal, state, and local governments in fighting drug trafficking and abuse. IRS-CI is the criminal investigative arm of the IRS, responsible for conducting financial crime investigations, including tax fraud, narcotics trafficking, money-laundering, public corruption, healthcare fraud, identity theft and more. IRS-CI special agents are the only federal law enforcement agents with investigative jurisdiction over violations of the Internal Revenue Code, obtaining a more than a 90 percent federal conviction rate. The agency has 20 field offices located across the U.S. and 12 attaché posts abroad.
