Man charged with trafficking drugs in wide-ranging scheme
A 29-year-old Mexican citizen allegedly living in the United States illegally has been accused of bringing heroin and methamphetamine to Western Montana in a wide-reaching scheme that stretched to Missoula, California and Mexico.
Octavio Guadalope Garcia-Morales was charged in U.S. District Court in Missoula with felony conspiracy to distribute controlled substances, possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine, and distribution of heroin.
Garcia-Morales pleaded not guilty on Jan. 13. He faces up to $10 million in fines and life in prison if convicted.
According to court documents, investigators in the Kalispell office of the Department of Homeland Security and members of the Northwest Drug Task Force were told by a confidential informant that a man named Jonas Magstadt had been involved in dealing heroin.
The informant said that he had received heroin from Magstadt in recent months and that Magstadt was receiving his heroin from a man who was in the country illegally and nicknamed “Junior.” The informant allegedly said that Magstadt had been introduced to Junior by a Whitefish man who had died of a heroin overdose in Missoula on Nov. 3, 2015.
The informant told authorities that Magstadt had met with Junior in the past at the McDonald’s restaurant in Polson to resupply heroin.
On Nov. 20, investigators met with the informant, Magstadt and Magstadt’s girlfriend at Southgate Mall in Missoula. An undercover agent allegedly bought 19 grams of suspected heroin from Magstadt for $3,000.
Three agents observed Magstadt walk from the undercover agent’s vehicle to a 1994 Honda Accord that was registered to Garcia-Morales in Missoula. Agents then learned that Garcia-Morales was in the country illegally and living in Missoula.
Agents received a warrant to affix a Global Positioning System tracking device on Garcia-Morales’s car on Nov. 25. The device was successfully attached on Dec. 2. On Dec. 7, an officer tapped Garcia-Morales’s phone with permission from a warrant.
The officers tracked Morales to Pak Rat Storage Facility on Old Grant Creek Road in Missoula on Dec. 7, 8 and 9. The GPS unit’s next readings on Dec. 11 and Dec. 13 led agents to believe that the car might have been parked in the storage facility.
Officers noticed that Garcia-Morales’s cellphone was powered off and did not power back on until Dec. 14, when the phone was used to contact the number of a suspected drug dealer in San Ysidro, California, that is currently under surveillance by the Department of Homeland Security. Garcia-Morales had allegedly told Magstadt that he powers off his phone when he makes his drug runs.
Garcia-Morales’s phone was tracked to Mojave, California.
On Dec. 18, an undercover agent contacted Magstadt and asked if a drug deal would happen that evening and Magstadt allegedly said that a dead was going to happen. Agents set up surveillance and saw Garcia-Morales remove the Honda Accord from the storage units and replace it with a 2009 Chevy Malibu.
A Missoula police officer stopped Garcia-Morales on Reserve Street in Missoula and he was taken to the Missoula Federal Bureau of Investigation office.
Garcia-Morales agreed to talk to the agents involved in the case.
Garcia-Morales allegedly said that he traveled to Southern California to pick up two pounds of heroin, but that he had to come home empty-handed after the drugs did not make it across the Mexican border.
Garcia-Morales allegedly admitted that he had methamphetamine in a shoe box inside the storage unit and more methamphetamine in his home. Garcia-Morales allegedly said that he sometimes hid the meth in a battery box in the trunk of the Chevy Malibu.
Agents searched all of Garcia-Morales’s suspected hiding places for meth and allegedly found 2.5 pounds of the drug in a bedroom dresser drawer and the storage unit.
Reporter Megan Strickland can be reached at 758-4459 or mstrickland@dailyinterlake.com.