Rolling Up the Valle Valle Narco-network in Guatemala

Agents of the Guatemalan Government and the US Drug Enforcement Agency arrested Rubén Arita Rivera, alleged to be part of a narco-network in Guatemala that articulated with the Valle Valle family network in Honduras.

Arita Rivera was arrested in the small community of Chamagua, near San Jose Zacapa, in Guatemala.  This is a prime location for transshipment of drugs from Honduras, through Guatemala, to El Salvador, one of the known routes of the Cartel del Pacifico (formerly the Sinaloa Cartel), allegedly managed by the Lorenzano family in Guatemala. 

It's an ideal location to intercept drug shipments going through the Honduras - Guatemala border from blind crossings at La Florida (where the Valle Valle family ranch was located) and El Paraiso, as well as shipments going through the border crossings of Copan Ruinas and Ocotepeque.  From there the drugs could be shipped northward to Mexico, or southwesterly into El Salvador.

But Arita Rivera isn't accused of running drugs, just being a money courier. Guatemala began investigating Arita Rivera in 2014 when they captured one of his couriers, Flavio Dimas Rojas, transporting a large sum of currency supposedly belonging to Arita Rivera. Guatemala alleges that Arita Rivera regularly ran drug money from Chiquimula in eastern Guatemala to Huehuetenango, along the border near Comitan, Mexico.

Arita Rivera has a US drug running conviction.  In March, 2008, he accepted delivery of a package in Spring Valley, NY that contained more than 500 grams (slightly over a pound) of cocaine.  He was charged with conspiracy with unnamed others to violate the US narcotics laws, and with possession with intent to distribute the cocaine.  On January 12, 2009 he was sentenced to be imprisoned for 37 months and fined $100.00 (US 7:08-cr-00571-SCR).  He was to serve 3 years probation after he served his sentence, and if he left the country or was deported, was not to re-enter the US without permission of the US Attorney.  If he had remained in the US he would just be completing his probation this coming June.

Instead, today he was arrested in Guatemala with the participation of the US DEA.