Arizona Man Sentenced to Prison for Trafficking Drugs To Connecticut

Leonard C Boyle, Acting United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut, announced that NOE CASTRO, 51, of Phoenix, Arizona, was sentenced today by U.S. District Judge Victor A. Bolden in Bridgeport to 20 months of imprisonment for trafficking narcotics into Connecticut.

According to court documents and statements made in court, in late 2018, the Drug Enforcement Administration’s New Haven Task Force and New Haven Police Department began investigation an organization that was responsible for trafficking kilogram-quantities of heroin, fentanyl and cocaine from Mexico and Arizona to the New Haven area.  Investigators subsequently identified Juan Carlos Gonzalez-Rubio as being responsible for moving narcotics from Arizona to Connecticut.  Between March and May 2019, investigators intercepted three packages – two that contained approximately one kilogram of cocaine, and one that contained approximately one kilogram of a mixture of heroin and fentanyl – that Gonzalez-Rubio, with Castro’s assistance, had shipped from Arizona to New Haven.  The investigation revealed that Gonzalez-Rubio and Castro trafficked narcotics both through the use of commercial shipping methods, like UPS and FedEx, and by secreting drugs in cars with hidden compartments that were transported on commercial car-haulers.

Castro has been detained since his arrest on March 6, 2020.  On June 2, 2021, he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute, and to possess with the intent to distribute, heroin, fentanyl and cocaine.

On August 21, 2021, Gonzalez-Rubio was sentenced to 48 months of imprisonment.  Gonzalez-Rubio, who was previously deported to Mexico and returned to the U.S., faces immigration proceedings at the conclusion of his sentence.

This matter was investigated by the DEA Task Force and the New Haven Police Department, with the assistance of the DEA in Tucson and Phoenix, and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) in New Haven and Tucson.  This case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Jocelyn Courtney Kaoutzanis and Rahul Kale.