TEXARKANA, Texas -A New Boston, Texas, man was taken into custody Friday after a jury found him guilty of conspiracy to traffic heroin, cocaine and fentanyl and of carrying a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking offense.
Armando Moya, 47, took the stand Thursday afternoon and denied any involvement in drug trafficking and provided flimsy explanations for nearly $200,000 in cash seized from him in June 2018 and a digital trail which concisely fit with witness testimony describing his participation.
"Sometimes things are exactly as they seem," Assistant U.S. Attorney Jonathan Hornok told jurors Friday morning in his closing remarks. "This was not a hard plan, this was not a complicated plan, this was a simple plan."
Through witness testimony, physical evidence and digital evidence, Hornok and Assistant U.S. Attorney Ryan Locker illustrated for the jury how the "Moya brothers' partnership in crime is a subset of a larger conspiracy."
Armando Moya's brother, Mexican physician Jose Moya, recruited two women to help him pass through a south Texas checkpoint with kilos of drugs on multiple occasions, witnesses testified. The women hid the packaged drug bundles in leggings they wore beneath long, billowing skirts.
Using information obtained in another investigation, DEA agents orchestrated a traffic stop of Jose Moya as he and the two women traveled June 6, 2018, in Jim Wells County, Texas, in a car Jose Moya rented in McAllen, Texas. All three cooperated and provided information that led agents in south Texas to contact their counterparts in the Eastern District of Texas.
DEA Agent Max Mella acquired a search warrant for Armando Moya's home in New Boston where the eight kilos of heroin and single kilo of fentanyl seized from Jose Moya were destined before law enforcement intervened. Armando Moya had arranged for a rental car pickup in Texarkana on June 8, 2018, and likely planned to move the drugs to someone waiting in another state.
When Mella and other agents confronted Armando Moya at his home in the early hours of June 7, Armando Moya confessed. He told them there was bulk U.S. currency in his closet and admitted that he expected his brother to show up with kilos of drugs and take the cash back to Mexico where it would ultimately make its way into the coffers of a Mexican drug cartel. While Jose Moya carried drugs through Texas to his brother and cash back to Mexico, Armando Moya delivered kilos of drugs to Illinois, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Tennessee. On many of those stops, Armando Moya collected U.S. currency ultimately bound for Mexico.
Mella testified Thursday that Armando Moya is responsible for trafficking between 109 and 150 kilos of drugs worth between $3.6 million to $5.1 million wholesale.
Jose Moya and the two women who muled drugs for him are serving federal prison sentences in connection with the case. A Chicago man who testified Thursday that he accepted drug deliveries from Armando Moya is awaiting sentencing in the Northern District of Illinois.
Armando Moya's brother-in-law, who drove and rode with him on trips to deliver drugs and collect cash, is awaiting sentencing in the Texarkana Division of the Eastern District of Texas.
Armando Moya is the only defendant charged in connection with the case who did not enter into a plea agreement with the government.
Armando Moya is facing a 35-year minimum at sentencing. A date for Armando Moya to be formally sentenced before U.S. District Judge Robert Schroeder III has not been set.
Armando Moya was taken into custody by U.S. marshals Friday.
Schroeder asked Armando Moya's lawyer, Jeff Harrelson of Texarkana, if he wants a hearing to determine if Armando Moya can be freed while awaiting sentencing. Harrelson said he would let the court know by the end of the day Friday if a detention hearing is necessary.