Donald Trump has been called a law and order president. He has declared cartels and transnational criminal organizations terrorists, sent the National Guard into high- crime cities, blown drug boats out of the water, and he has declared the deadly drug fentanyl to be a weapon of mass destruction.
And President Trump has signed into law the Homeland Security Task Force (HSTF) initiative, which was established by Executive Order 14159, Protecting the American People Against Invasion.
According to the U.S. Justice Department, the HSTF is a whole-of-government partnership dedicated to eliminating criminal cartels, foreign gangs, transnational criminal organizations, and human smuggling and trafficking rings operating in the United States and abroad. Through historic interagency collaboration, the HSTF directs the full might of United States law enforcement towards identifying, investigating, and prosecuting the full spectrum of crimes committed by these organizations, which have long fueled violence and instability within our borders. In performing this work, the HSTF places special emphasis on investigating and prosecuting those engaged in child trafficking or other crimes involving children. The HSTF further utilizes all available tools to prosecute and remove the most violent criminal aliens from the United States.
Here in Philadelphia, David Metcalf, President Trump’s U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, announced the establishment of HSTF Philadelphia earlier in December.
Metcalf called the task force a focused federal effort dedicated to eliminating criminal cartels and transnational criminal organizations (TCOs) that fuel fentanyl overdoses and deaths, inject violence into the communities, facilitate human trafficking, and exploit vulnerable communities across the city of Philadelphia and the surrounding areas.
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, HSTF Philadelphia is part of the Department of Justice’s nationwide campaign to dismantle TCOs, following the President’s Executive Order and the Attorney General’s directive establishing Homeland Security Task Forces across the country.
“Philadelphia faces unique challenges as a major metropolitan hub and port city. At the center of those challenges is the fentanyl crisis and the violence that accompanies it. As cartels pour deadly drugs into this district that do immeasurable damage, they’re also fueling gun trafficking and violent gang activity that destabilize neighborhoods and put families at risk,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office stated. “From drug corners in Kensington to illegal firearms transported through the interstate corridor, HSTF Philadelphia will confront these threats head on, uniting federal, state, and local resources to identify, prosecute, and eliminate the criminal networks responsible.
“The U.S. Attorney’s Office will bring the most serious charges available — racketeering, continuing criminal enterprise, terrorism-related statutes, and major narcotics conspiracies — to dismantle TCOs from top to bottom. Prosecutors will also pursue human trafficking and smuggling cases, especially those exploiting minors, and will strip cartels of their financial power by seizing and forfeiting illicit assets. Where violence threatens communities, the office will move swiftly to secure detention and bring offenders to justice.”
U.S. Attorney Metcalf added, “Transnational gangs bring fentanyl, violence, and human misery into Philadelphia and southeastern Pennsylvania. Let me be clear: they will find no safe harbor here. My office will use every federal statute, every investigative tool, and every ounce of our authority to prosecute them, dismantle their networks, and put their leaders behind bars for as long as the law allows.”
HSTF Philadelphia is co-led by Homeland Security Investigations and the FBI, in coordination with the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Partner agencies include the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and the U.S. Marshals Service.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office noted that this announcement builds on prosecutions already under way in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. Recent indictments have charged defendants allegedly tied to transnational criminal organizations and foreign distribution networks pouring millions of dollars of fentanyl, cocaine, and other illegal drugs through Philadelphia:
Humberto Gutierrez-Orozco, 37, a Mexican national illegally in the United States, was charged with trafficking over $10 million worth of cocaine from Mexico, after he attempted to smuggle these deadly drugs into and across the United States, including to Chicago, Pittsburgh, and Philadelphia, as alleged in court filings.
HSTF investigators conducted a covert operation after agents identified a tractor-trailer with 440 kilograms of cocaine secreted inside. As part of that operation, Gutierrez-Orozco was arrested, and the drugs were seized.
If convicted, Gutierrez-Orozco faces a maximum sentence of life in prison and a mandatory minimum term of 10 years in prison.
Four defendants have been charged with allegedly trafficking bulk amounts of fentanyl, in related cases.
Victor Bueno-Fermin, 54, a Dominican national illegally in the United States, and Yesenia Duarte-Paulina, 35, of the Dominican Republic, were charged with trafficking 689 grams of fentanyl, and heroin. Bueno-Fermin was also charged with illegally reentering the United States after a prior deportation. Jose Rondon, 25, of New York, was charged with trafficking 865 grams of fentanyl, and cocaine, and Manuel Antonio Sanchez-Santos, 51, of the Dominican Republic, was charged with trafficking 1.7 kilograms of fentanyl.
Their indictments followed coordinated drug raids earlier this year in North and Northeast Philadelphia by HSTF agencies and partners. As detailed in court filings, HSTF investigators seized over three kilograms of fentanyl in the raids, which equals millions of individual doses of this dangerous drug.
If convicted, each of these defendants faces a maximum sentence of life in prison and a mandatory minimum term of 10 years in prison.
Francis Rondon-Caceras, 32, a Dominican national and the alleged leader of a large-scale fentanyl trafficking organization, was charged along with seven other individuals with distributing millions of dollars' worth of fentanyl into Philadelphia, as well as Western Pennsylvania.
As alleged in the indictment, this criminal organization utilized packaging houses in Philadelphia to process bulk amounts of fentanyl, which members of the organization mixed with adulterants, including the horse tranquilizer xylazine, in order to expand their profit margins and to “boost” and extend the drugs’ effects.
As further alleged in court filings, HSTF partners caught the defendants trafficking over 10 kilograms of fentanyl, and over $185,000 in drug proceeds was seized during the investigation.
Donald Griffin, 32; Francisco Quezada, 41; Alexi Quezada, 36; Juan Fransella-Jose, 36; Alexander Rodriguez Crouset, 38; Victor Jose Herrera Castillo, 44; and Juan Ortiz, 35, were charged in the indictment, along with Rondon-Caceres. Except for Griffin, of Allegheny County, Pa., the defendants in this case are Dominican nationals illegally in the United States.
If convicted, each of these defendants faces a maximum sentence of life in prison and a mandatory minimum term of ten years in prison.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office stated that these cases demonstrate how federal prosecutions can both disrupt the flow of deadly drugs into our region and eliminate criminal drug trafficking organizations operating here.
“Our neighborhoods deserve to be free from the grip of cartels and gangs that traffic in drugs, guns, and people,” Metcalf said. “HSTF Philadelphia is about more than prosecutions — it’s about protecting families, restoring safety, and ensuring that no community in our district is left vulnerable to the reach of transnational criminal organizations.”
