Good afternoon, everybody. I'm Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri, and with me here today is Florida Department of Law Enforcement Special Agent in Charge Mark De Palma. And we're here today to announce the arrest of several individuals and the dismantling of a Pinellas County-based drug trafficking organization. This organization and it's one of those things I guess as they say you can't make it up is headed by a person by the name of Daniel Pinellas. Although he spells it differently and he spells his last name p i n a l e s. Pinellas is 35 years old and he has a criminal history involving arrests for multiple felonies. Pinellas has many ties to Pinellas County, but he currently lives in Brandon over in Hillsborough County. Pinellas was arrested Saturday night and charged with cocaine trafficking. Also charged with cocaine trafficking were three people from El Paso, Texas. Jesus Guadalupe Chan Morales with a date of birth of May 25th, 1990. Joaquin Enriquez date of birth 83, 2005 and Arturo Carlos date of birth 610, 1994. In addition, we arrested several Pinellas County residents who were part of this cocaine trafficking organization. And they are Tyler Green. He's charged with four counts of trafficking in cocaine. Brian Higgins, eight counts of trafficking in cocaine. Brian Varner, eight counts of trafficking in cocaine. Cody Dent, one count of trafficking cocaine and Ryan Sturges, one count of trafficking in cocaine. For the past several years, we've been investigating Daniel Pinellas and his drug trafficking organization. We learned as a result of other cocaine trafficking cases that Daniel Pinellas was obtaining multiple kilograms of cocaine from a source of supply outside of Florida and distributing that cocaine to many different people within Pinellas County. We conducted several investigations including three wiretap investigations of people who were obtaining cocaine from Daniel Penaloza in order to uncover the full nature and scope of these drug distribution activities. These investigations have been jointly conducted by the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement under the state's state's safe funding initiative. While we arrested several individuals during these prior investigations, we were unable to establish probable cause to arrest Daniel Penaloza. In about April of this year, the investigation revealed that Penaloza was obtaining multiple kilograms of cocaine from a source of supply in El Paso, Texas. We learned the cocaine was being transported in truck tractors. The tractors consisted of one operable tractor that was towing two other tractors. The towed tractors were props, and they were props to hide the cocaine and the real reason that the tractors were moving between El Paso and Florida. The tractors are those behind me, which we seized on Saturday night, and I'll talk more about what led to that seizure in a minute. We determined that one of the tractor drivers was Arturo Carlos, who I mentioned that we arrested, and he's from El Paso. And Carlos was accompanied by two other men who we identified as Morales and Enriquez. When the subjects traveled to Florida with the cocaine, they had another vehicle that usually trailed along or followed them, and that was usually a rented SUV. Carlos, Morales, and Enriquez monthly routine, and I said monthly routine, they're doing this every month, was to arrive in Wesley Chapel in Pasco County off of I-75 and check into a hotel. They would then meet with Penaloza and transfer duffel bags to him that contained multiple kilograms of cocaine. Penaloza would take the cocaine to a stash house in the Rocky Point area of Tampa where he would store it pending distribution. Panellas had a woman rent an apartment in an apartment complex in Rocky Point that he used to stash the cocaine and it was his stash house. Nobody lived there and again it was only for the purpose of storing cocaine. Panellas would then sell kilograms of cocaine to multiple people in Pinellas County including Tyler Green who as I mentioned we arrested yesterday. And he would sell the cocaine to all of these people while the people from El Paso waited at the hotel in Pasco County for their money. Green distributed the cocaine to others in Pinellas County including as I mentioned who we arrested Higgins. Higgins sold the cocaine to Warner and others. Once Daniel Panellas distributed the cocaine and collected the money, he would deliver the money in duffel bags to the people from El Paso, Carlos Morales and Enriquez who would then hide it in the tractors behind me and take the money back to El Paso, Texas. We estimate that Carlos, Morales and Enriquez transported about $1 million on every trip back to El Paso. And remember, this routine repeated itself every month. This past Friday, July 10th, we learned that Carlos, Morales and Enriquez left El Paso in the tractors and were headed to meet with Panellas to deliver another load of cocaine. We conducted surveillance of Carlos, Morales and Enriquez and found them driving south on I-75 from Interstate 10 in Lake City in Columbia County. Carlos was operating the tractors as usual and Morales and Enriquez were in a rented Mitsubishi SUV. As they had always done in the past, they went to a hotel off State Road 56 in Wesley Chapel where they remained all day Saturday. Panellas had rented a car as he did when he was about to pick up cocaine from the Texas sources. Then about 8:00 p.m. on Saturday night, we observed Morales and Enriquez remove three duffel bags from the back of the black tractor, the one that's sitting right over here behind me over uh my left shoulder and to your right, and place them in the SUV. So, he took the three duffel bags out of the black tractor as it was parallel to it and placed them in the SUV. At about that same time, Pinellas left his home in Brandon in the rental car, which was a Honda silver Honda van, and he drove north on I-75. Morales and Enriquez left the hotel, and they were traveling south on I-75. Pinellas, Morales, and Enriquez all met in a dark secluded parking lot off Fletcher Avenue in Tampa, where Morales and Enriquez transferred the three duffel bags they took out of this black trail this back this black tractor put it into their Mitsubishi SUV, and they transferred it in this dark parking lot off of Fletcher Avenue in Tampa into Pinellas's vehicle. When detectives tried to stop Pinellas, he fled. There was a chase, but he was apprehended. We found three duffel bags containing 60 kg of cocaine in Pinellas's vehicle. The cocaine is displayed here on the table, and it has a street value of about $2.1 million. Morales and Enriquez, after they left Pinellas in the parking lot, returned [snorts] to the hotel where they were taken into custody, and Carlos was also arrested at the hotel. A kilogram of cocaine, each one of these is about 2.2 lb. So, in this one shipment alone, we seized about 132 lb of cocaine that was going to be sold on the streets of Pinellas County. And again, remember, this was happening every single month. This is the largest drug seizure from a single Pinellas County drug trafficker that I know of in the past 40 plus years. The amount of cocaine that Daniel Pinellas was putting on the streets of Pinellas County is just simply astronomical. If each monthly load was in the 60 kg range, that means he was selling over 700 kilos of cocaine a year in our community and making millions of dollars. Now, unfortunately, nothing's going to stop drug trafficking, but the dismantling of this organization is going to slow it down for a bit in Pinellas County. Daniel Pinellas was booked into the Hillsborough County Jail, and his bail is set at $2.25 million. Carlos Morales and Enriquez were booked into the Pasco County Jail. Carlos' bail is at 1 million, and the other two are at 500,000. All the other subjects were booked into the Pinellas County Jail. I want to publicly recognize the tenacious work done by our Narcotics Division detectives, other members of the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office, and agents from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement for job well done in dismantling this organization and putting Daniel Pinellas in jail where he belongs. Pinellas faces a 15-year minimum mandatory sentence in state prison, and our community is better off with him in prison and off the streets. So, again, this is just a historical seizure. I've never seen anything like it uh come from one person. Uh all this cocaine in those duffel bags, again, 60 kg of cocaine is is basically off the charts. So, happy to answer any questions if anybody has any. >> What's the biggest break on trafficking that you've had over the years? What's the biggest break in this case? >> Well, information from other people. Uh so, we were at this for probably about 3 years trying to get him. Uh we first received information that he was a major distributor, and you know, what happens, it's no secret, is is that we arrest people and we get information from people, and people tell us, you know, here's what's going on, and here's who's doing it. His name surfaced over and over again as a major trafficker and a major source of supply. And we began to target him and conducted investigations, but we were never able to establish, as I said in my prepared remarks, never able to establish probable cause to arrest him. Um you know, I'll acknowledge I kind of hate to acknowledge it, I guess, but he's pretty good at what he did. And he eluded us, but he wasn't good enough. And thanks to the great work done by all of our detectives and FDLE and everybody within the Sheriff's Office, this was a real team effort, and we got them. >> Can you explain, if there's an explanation, what with the trucks and the duffel bags and the black one they're driving? >> Oh, yeah. I mean, this is this is like, you know, a complete facade. It's a you know, on their part. It's the cover because when these tractors are going on I-10 from El Paso here, I mean, look at them. It is is that somebody sees it, you take a trooper or a deputy sheriff, a police officer sees this, you're just thinking this trucker's going about their business. And it would also, even if they did get stopped, it would make it very difficult for a canine because the cocaine was primarily from what we can best tell, in this black one here at the back, back in the sleeper compartment, and it's so high up. So, even if you had a trooper someplace on I-10, whether it was in Texas or Louisiana or Florida or wherever stopped them, even if you ran a dog on it, it's not going to hit. And it was good cover. And like I said, you know, I'll give them a little bit of credit, not for much because they were doing some really, really bad stuff, but they were cautious and smart, just not smart enough for our people. And they waited all day Saturday. I mean, there's no doubt that when they arrived in town, they got in town at that hotel up off 56 in Pasco County somewhere around 9:00 in the morning. They were a little bit delayed. In the past, they had got they had arrived there like 4:00, 4:30 in the morning, but they wanted to do it under cover under cover of darkness. They waited all day. There was no reason for them to sit there other than they were very cautious. They knew what they wanted to do. They wanted to use cover of darkness, etc. And so, that's what they did. They're they they had their script. And that's why they met in that very dark, uh, place over in Tampa. There's a reason why Penelles got a rental car. So, you know, they they thought they were pretty slick, but not slick enough. >> Can you specify, um, which country Daniel Penelles Morales Cardoza and Enrique are from? >> So, Penelles, you know, I don't know as far as his national origin is concerned, he's a Hispanic male. He he was, I believe, born here. Uh, the other three are Mexicans. >> And ICE will be involved with this? >> We've talked to ICE. They're aware of it. They're looking into them. Yes. >> And you just said funding at some point. How does that help play a role in this operation? >> Yeah, so the state, you know, the legislature came up with the the safe funding a few years ago uh, to help the state and through the Florida Department of Law Enforcement help fund these investigations. It takes a lot of time, money, overtime costs, equipment costs. You know, I don't want to get into some of the specifics, but it takes a lot with the wiretap cases, to fund those, to get the equipment, to have the personnel, uh, everything that goes into it. So, it was very beneficial to have the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the state of Florida with the legislature has done, the governor's done to support sheriffs and police departments in conducting these investigations. So, it's it's a big deal because it's a team effort and they have some resources they're able to bring to the table to help with this. >> I'm not sure if you mentioned this. How did they know each other, uh, the three guys from Texas and Penelles? >> So, you know, of course, we don't know that. They met somewhere along the line. Uh, you know, what I would tell you from experience and what the investigation shows here is is that there's there's people above Carlos and the others in Texas. And whether Penelles had a relationship directly with them and these people were in the middle and they were transported it or exactly how it went, that's not clear, but this investigation's ongoing and it's not over with and we'll be looking to further investigate those people in El Paso and other places in the country because I can tell you that what the investigation also showed is that while these three tractors came here every month and delivered 60 kilos of cocaine, they were doing the same thing and we know that definitively in other parts of the country. So, you know, standby because that investigation is still ongoing and these guys out in Texas and El Paso, they're moving some significant quantities of coke. >> Do you think there will be more arrests? >> I hope. >> And just to to clarify, that all the five on the the right, were they like the street level dealers or >> Yeah, so what's happening is is that you got Pinellas is that he's getting dope from his sources which are the people in Texas and he's getting 60 kilos at a time. So, he brings those 60 kilos in, he takes it to the stash house over in Rocky Point. He's got his people all around Pinellas County and these are just some of them. There's others that we know about, we just haven't arrested them yet. So, they're sitting in the hotel, he's got all of his dope. He gets with them, he pedals the dope out, they sit for two or three days, all these guys, Green and the others, they sell all their dope. They bring him back the money, he puts the money in duffel bags, takes it back to them and then they take it back to Texas. So, you know, it's it's like any other supply chain. You got the people who have it, the people who get it and then the people who distribute it down and you know, the lower you go then it gets down to the street and unfortunately, you know, this is the stuff that ends up in people's noses. This is the stuff that if it gets mixed with fentanyl or anything else kills people and the people who they are taking advantage of sadly are the people who are addicted. It's all supply and demand and these are the people and in these quantities that, you know, end up with the personal use amounts eventually. So, that that's, you know, that's how it works and again, other people standby. We we know a lot of other people that Pinellas was selling drugs to in the area. He couldn't get rid of all that dope just to those guys. There's a whole network out there and we're still investigating. >> You know if there is selling to people in Hillsborough County or is it mainly >> It was pri- It was primarily Pinellas County. Um you know, and I can't I'm not going to say that nothing at all ever happened, but it This is very typical of somebody at such a high level as Daniel Pinellas. He's got roots here in Pinellas. His mother lives here, his brother lives here, his brother owns a business here, he's got kids here. But, all of his criminal activity that he was doing was here in Pinellas with that, but he lived over in Brandon. So, he was doing that for a reason. Uh and I don't think he was doing Put it this way, if he was doing anything in Hillsborough County or Pasco or any place else, it was minimal. The absolute majority of it was here in Pinellas, and he'd only do this 3 days a month. And the rest of the time, you know, he had the life maybe some of us would like because we watched him, and we watched him extensively. And all he did was go to the gym all day and hang out. So, you know, not anymore. Uh you know, 15-year minimum mandatory prison sentence, and and hopefully he gets more than that. >> By him only doing this 3 days out of the month, did that make it harder to uh to finally catch him? >> Oh, yeah, big time because, you know, again, you know, our narcotics detectives and the FDLE agents and everybody else involved is we had to stay on this, you know, continually and be tenacious with it. And because we only had a short window that he was actually doing this, we had to hit it right. And if our timing wasn't right and we were off, and that's why you don't know exactly when it's going to be because they're dope dealers. They don't have a set date and time. They don't make appointments to do this stuff. They do it whenever they want. And so, yeah, it made it much more difficult because of that short window that we had to work with in. All right, thanks everybody. Appreciate it.