Two Orange County men were arrested this week after being indicted by a grand jury on suspicion they shipped wholesale amounts of cocaine and methamphetamine to Australia and other areas by concealing the drugs in such products as instant noodle packets, car parts, emergency kits and subwoofers, federal authorities said Friday, Dec. 15.
Hoang Xuan Le, 42, of Tustin and Tri Cao Buinguyen, 38, of Garden Grove pleaded not guilty Friday to charges of conspiracy to export controlled substances, conspiracy to distribute controlled substances and distribution of methamphetamine, Ciaran McEvoy, spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office, said. They were arrested Thursday.
Two other men were being sought by law enforcement on suspicion of the two conspiracy charges, McEvoy said. They are Trung Buinguyen, 40, of Lakewood and Narongsak Champy, 28, of Long Beach.
The four men were accused of communicating with and sending several shipments of drugs to members of a drug trafficking organization in Australia, Papua New Guinea and New Zealand from February 2017 to September 2022, McEvoy said.
They arranged for the drugs to be sent by air cargo, ocean freight and U.S. mail, the spokesman said.
As part of the investigation, law enforcement officials seized 1,664 pounds of methamphetamine and more than 220 pounds of cocaine, which they estimated could be worth up to $160 million, McEvoy said.
Federal authorities accused Le and Tri Buingyuen of directing the following drug shipments:
A summer 2018 shipment of 860 pounds of methamphetamine concealed in packets of instant noodles and mushroom seasoning,
A September 2018 shipment of 249 pounds of methamphetamine and more than 220 pounds of cocaine disguised as garlic seasoning,
Additional shipments of unknown quantities in October 2018, November 2019, February 2020 and August 2020 which were concealed in emergency kits, car parts, subwooofers and customized metal boxes,
A June 2021 shipment of more than 330 pounds of methamphetamine in food storage buckets, and
August and September 2022 shipments totaling more than 70 pounds of methamphetamine in ready-to-eat meal packets.
The men were accused of using fictitious names, businesses and email accounts to communicate with vendors, freight forwarders, shipping companies, custom brokers and customs officials in order to disguise the drugs as legitimate products, McEvoy said.
They also used cell phones equipped with encrypted messaging applications, such as Signal, to communicate and coordinate the export of controlled substances, authorities said.
How the men obtained the controlled substances to package and ship was not known.
If convicted of the charges, each of the four men faces a statutory maximum sentence of life in federal prison.
Source: Orange County Register
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