Tucson man sentenced 17.5 years for possession of methamphetamine, firearms following HSI, multiagency investigation
TUCSON, Ariz. – A local-area man will serve a lengthy prison sentence following his guilty plea following a Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) investigation assisted by multiple federal law enforcement agencies.
Gabriel Joseph Bustamante, 43, was sentenced Sept. 28 to 17.5 years in prison for possessing with the intent to distribute methamphetamine and for being a felon in possession of firearms. He will also be on a five-year supervised release program following the completion of his prison sentence.
On April 22, 2021, federal agents served a search warrant on Bustamante’s residential trailer and seized 3.6 kilograms of pure methamphetamine and multiple firearms. Federal agents also searched two storage units belonging to Bustamante where they recovered additional firearms.
“By targeting methamphetamine sources and known felons, HSI is preventing dangerous drugs from reaching the streets and dangerous people from continuing their illicit activities,” said Scott Brown, special agent in charge for HSI Phoenix. “We will continue to work closely with our partners to target and dismantle these trafficking networks.”
This investigation was a collaborative effort between federal law enforcement agencies and is part of the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF) initiative in southern Arizona that is led by the Tucson Strike Force. OCDETF identifies, disrupts, and dismantles the highest-level drug traffickers, money launderers, gangs, and transnational criminal organizations that threaten the United States by using a prosecutor-led, intelligence-driven, multi-agency approach that leverages the strengths of federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies against criminal networks.
The agencies that assisted HSI Tucson include the Drug Enforcement Administration, the FBI, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Ashley Culver and David Petermann, District of Arizona, Tucson, handled the prosecution of the case.
HSI is a directorate of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the principal investigative arm of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), responsible for investigating transnational crime and threats, specifically those criminal organizations that exploit the global infrastructure through which international trade, travel, and finance move. HSI’s workforce of over 10,400 employees consists of more than 6,800 special agents assigned to 225 cities throughout the United States, and 93 overseas locations in 56 countries. HSI’s international presence represents DHS’s largest investigative law enforcement presence abroad and one of the largest international footprints in U.S. law enforcement.
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