As St. George has grown, so has the region’s demand for synthetic drugs, according to a recent investigation by The Washington Post, which describes how methamphetamine and fentanyl are being supplied to the southern Utah city by Mexican drug cartels.
The impact has been devastating, according to statistics referenced by The Post. In Utah, fentanyl overdose deaths had increased 300% over three recent years, killing 170 people in 2021, according to the state health department.
The newspaper detailed the drug trafficking investigation and arrest of a 41-year-old man named Angel Rubio Quintana.
Brady Wilson, an agent with the Drug Enforcement Administration, had first launched the St. George investigation with other federal law enforcement officials based on a “gut feeling” that the cartel was selling drugs in the city, the story states.
In 2021, authorities traced a shipment of drugs to Rubio Quintana, who had been deported to Mexico years earlier but returned to St. George.
They learned that Rubio Quintana was living in a suburb of St. George. The first time agents purchased meth from him, it arrived in a 5-pound tub of sour cream, so they named the investigation “Operation Sour Cream,” the Washington Post report states.
The Post describes how in the 2010s, the closest drug cartel outpost to St. George was Las Vegas, about a two-hour drive away. But St. George’s population growth spurred greater demand for drugs in the area, The Post reported.
The story describes Interstate 15, which passes through St. George and connects Los Angeles to much of the country, as “American’s main fentanyl artery.”
Rubio Quintana and his colleagues would order drugs from Mexico, pick them up in California, distribute them in southern Utah, and wire payments back to Mexico, according to court documents referenced by The Post.
Rubio Quintana was later taken into custody by the DEA, and charged with conspiracy to distribute fentanyl and methamphetamine and conspiracy to launder money, court documents show. He also was charged with unlawful reentry into the United States.
In July, he pleaded guilty to trafficking fentanyl, methamphetamine and marijuana, and to laundering the proceeds. His sentencing was rescheduled this week for Feb. 28 at 11 a.m., according to court records.
