Perdue
By Andy East | Aim Media Indiana
INDIANAPOLIS — A Jackson County woman who authorities say had ties to a Mexican drug cartel once run by notorious leader Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman has agreed to plead guilty to charges related to an alleged conspiracy to transport drugs from the U.S.-Mexico border and distribute them in Bartholomew County and elsewhere.
Allison Perdue, 24, of Seymour is facing charges of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute methamphetamine and possession with intent to distribute 50 grams or more of methamphetamine, according to filings in U.S. District Court in Indianapolis. Each charge carries a potential maximum sentence of 10 years to life in prison, a $10 million fine and at least five years of supervised release, court records state.
At the same time, another local resident who pleaded guilty to charges related to the conspiracy will spend nearly four years in federal prison.
Claudio Garcia-Morales of Columbus was sentenced to three years and 10 months in federal prison after pleading guilty to conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute controlled substances, including 500 grams or more of methamphetamine.
Federal authorities allege Perdue, Garcia-Morales and more than a dozen other individuals were part of a drug trafficking network that used a number of couriers and mailing companies to transport methamphetamine and other substances from the U.S.-Mexico border to Indianapolis.
From there, the drugs would be handed off to other individuals to distribute in other areas of central and southern Indiana, including Bartholomew and Jackson counties, according to court filings.
Drug Enforcement Administration officials told The Republic last year that the members of the drug trafficking ring were some of the biggest suppliers of drugs in Bartholomew and Jackson counties — including methamphetamine and fentanyl — and had ties to the Sinaloa Cartel, which experts say controls a wholesale distribution network in the U.S. and elsewhere to get drugs into the hands of local street dealers.
The charges stem from an investigation launched by the DEA in 2021, court records state. Over the course of the investigation, federal agents received authorization to intercept and monitor communications on nine cellphones, including three phones belonging to a Bartholomew County resident.
DEA agents said the suspects would routinely communicate and discuss obtaining and distributing methamphetamine over the intercepted phones.
Additionally, federal authorities said several of the individuals involved in the drug trafficking network attempted to disguise financial transactions to conceal that the money came from distributing controlled substances.
Court filings state that the conspirators sent at least 324 wire transfers totaling $291,116 from Indiana to Phoenix, Arizona, and Mexico from Jan. 5, 2020, to April 26, 2022, including a wire transfer made directly from Columbus to a municipality in Sinaloa, Mexico. Sinaloa is a state along the Pacific Ocean in northwestern Mexico.
Over the course of the investigation, authorities learned Perdue was responsible for distributing methamphetamine in southern Indiana, according to her petition to plead guilty.
On Dec. 30, 2021, a co-defendant in the case met Perdue at a Columbus motel to deliver methamphetamine to her, the petition states. About a week later, Perdue distributed 84 grams of methamphetamine to an unnamed individual in Columbus on behalf of Seymour resident Victor Vazquez-Hernandez, who also was charged.
On Feb. 25, 2022, Perdue and Vazquez-Hernandez distributed methamphetamine out of a Columbus motel room, at one point receiving two pounds of the drug from two other co-defendants, who authorities allege were acting at the direction of Columbus resident Abel Ayala-Garcia.
On at least two occasions, two defendants involved in the alleged conspiracy delivered two to three pounds of methamphetamine to Ayala-Garcia at his place of employment, SalvaMex restaurant on the east side of Columbus, court records state.
Federal agents executed a search warrant of a room at Knights Inn in Seymour in the early morning of April 28, 2022, finding Perdue to be the lone occupant of the hotel room, the petition states. During a search of the room, agents seized a backpack that contained 507 grams of methamphetamine and a loaded gun that belonged to Vazquez-Hernandez.
Perdue is the latest former local resident to agree to plead guilty to federal drug trafficking charges from the conspiracy.
In August, Garcia-Morales, a former Columbus resident, agreed to plead guilty to conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute controlled substances, including 500 grams or more of methamphetamine.
At around the same time, Erlin Lucero-Asencio, who was listed as an Indianapolis resident at the time of his arrest, filed a petition to plead guilty to conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute controlled substances, including 500 grams or more of methamphetamine.
Lucero-Asencio previously resided in Columbus and has a criminal history in Bartholomew County, according to local court records. He was arrested in Columbus in 2013 after allegedly selling $5,300 in methamphetamine to a confidential informant on two occasions in the parking lot of Kroger Marketplace on North National Road, according to a probable cause affidavit.
He also was arrested in Columbus in 2015 for possession of cocaine after allegedly offering the drug to an individual in the bathroom of El Corral Night Club.
Vazquez-Hernandez pleaded guilty earlier this year to one count of possession with intent to distribute 50 grams or more of methamphetamine as part of the alleged conspiracy.
Ayala-Garcia has been charged with conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute controlled substances and conspiracy to launder money, but he had not pleaded guilty as of Monday morning. A trial date has been set for March 25.
The announcement of the arrests took place in May 2022, just over a year after federal, state and local law enforcement said they had dismantled a drug trafficking network in the Columbus area with ties to an undisclosed Mexican drug cartel, leading to about 60 arrests — including at least 36 federal indictments and 23 local prosecutions — and 25 federal convictions.
Named Operation Columbus Day, the investigation is believed to be the largest multiagency drug investigation in Bartholomew County history.
It is unclear whether the people arrested in May 2022 had any connection to Operation Columbus Day.
Perdue had been around one man who pleaded guilty to federal drug trafficking charges as a result of Operation Columbus Day.
Perdue was identified in a probable cause affidavit in 2018 as yelling “(expletive) the police” while a Columbus police officer wrestled Bryan Miranda-Alvidrez to the ground as a loaded 40-caliber Smith & Wesson pistol slid down the suspect’s pants.
Miranda-Alvidrez was later indicted and pleaded guilty to two counts of distributing 50 grams or more of methamphetamine and sentenced to 10 years in prison. He is serving time at a federal prison in Ohio, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons.