Beneath is an official assertion from the US Legal professional’s Workplace for the Center District of Florida relating to a gun trafficking conspiracy:
Tampa, Florida – U.S. District Choose Steven Merryday has sentenced Jonathan Rafael Ortega Martinez (42) to 10 years in federal jail for conspiracy to visitors firearms and trafficking in firearms. Ortega Martinez beforehand pleaded responsible.
In keeping with the plea settlement, between 2023 and April 2024, Ortega Martinez was a member of a large-scale firearms trafficking operation. Particularly, he and members of his conspiracy recruited people, generally known as “straw purchasers,” to illegally buy firearms—together with Glocks, rifles and AK-47s—from licensed federal firearms sellers throughout Florida. After acquiring the firearms, Ortega Martinez and his co-conspirators smuggled them abroad, delivery them to international locations together with the Dominican Republic and Haiti. Between 2023 and 2024, Ortega Martinez and his co-conspirators trafficked greater than 1,000 firearms. Investigations revealed that a number of of those firearms have been later recovered at crime scenes.
On April 18, 2024, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and Homeland Safety Investigations brokers in Tampa and Orlando executed three search warrants at three residences within the Orlando space. There, brokers discovered Ortega Martinez and recovered roughly 57 firearms, 30 empty gun containers, roughly $16,000 in money, ammunition, and cash counters.
Along with Ortega Martinez, two others have been indicted and convicted of conspiracy to visitors firearms. On March 11, 2025, Ricardo Sune Giron, who was residing in the US illegally underneath an assumed identify, and who was the topic of an lively INTERPOL Pink Discover from Guatemala, was sentenced to 14 years for his position on this conspiracy. On July 31, 2025, Maicor Eliud Cepeda-Garcia was sentenced to fifteen years—the utmost sentenced allowed underneath the legislation—for his position within the conspiracy.
This case was investigated by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and Homeland Safety Investigations, with assist from INTERPOL Washington. It was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys Diego F. Novaes and Noah Dorman.
