Man linked to ‘high-level’ drug smugglers pleads guilty to laundering money

McALLEN, Texas (ValleyCentral) — A man linked to high-level drug smugglers pleaded guilty Thursday to laundering money.

Gabino Lopez, 45, of San Benito transported cash from an industrial town near Houston to the Rio Grande Valley.

“Guilty,” Lopez said Thursday morning, when he appeared before Chief U.S. District Judge Randy Crane at the federal courthouse in McAllen.

Lopez was born in Brownsville and raised in Matamoros.

At some point, a cousin who worked on a ranch in Mexico introduced Lopez to a drug smuggler.

The smuggler told Lopez “he knew people who moved merchandise, and that if Lopez knew anyone who was willing to do that kind of work, they could make some money,” according to documents filed by federal prosecutors.

In 2005, when his wife became pregnant, Lopez needed extra cash.

Lopez found two drivers, “Pedro” and “Luis,” who could transport cocaine to Dallas, according to documents filed by federal prosecutors. The smuggler paid him $300.

A week later, Lopez and the smuggler headed to Fort Worth to pick up payment for the cocaine.

The Fort Worth Police Department, however, had seized the cocaine — and sent an undercover police officer to meet them.

Lopez pleaded guilty.

“I’m very repentant,” Lopez said in 2006, when he appeared before a judge for sentencing. “And I’m not going to do it again.”

The U.S. Bureau of Prisons released Lopez in 2010.

Less than a year later, Lopez was charged with selling cocaine. A federal judge sent him back to prison.

Lopez was released in 2018.

He resurfaced on Nov. 15, 2021, when federal agents intercepted a suspicious package in Weslaco.

Someone had shipped the package from a taqueria in Fort Wayne, Indiana, to a home in Progreso, according to an affidavit filed in a civil forfeiture case.

The package was addressed to Lopez.

After obtaining a search warrant, agents opened the package and seized $15,000 in cash.

Three days later, a state trooper stopped Lopez on Interstate 2 in Mercedes because the license plate on his Chevrolet Tahoe belonged to another car.

During a search, agents discovered $28,000.

The money had been placed in clear, vacuum-sealed bags and hidden in a tow dolly attached to the Tahoe.

Lopez said he knew the cash was drug money, according to a civil forfeiture affidavit.

Someone in Mexico, who he knew as “El Don,” promised him $3,000 to drive the tow dolly to Baytown, an industrial city near Houston.

Lopez said he met two men at the Buc-ee’s convenience store in Baytown. They took the trailer and loaded it with $28,000 in cash.

“He has been around this type of thing before,” according to the affidavit, “so he knows the money is drug money.”

Agents didn’t arrest Lopez until 2024.

“Essentially, because there was an ongoing investigation, we refrained from charging Mr. Lopez,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Alejandra Andrade said during a hearing in May 2024.

Lopez had been “connected to high-level targets,” Andrade said, “that are drug trafficking targets.”

Andrade didn’t identify the drug traffickers or provide any details about them.

Less than a year after Lopez confessed to picking up drug money in Baytown, a task force in Arkansas caught him with about 8 pounds of cocaine.

“It coincided with, later, the Arkansas case,” Andrade said. “We wanted to make sure that it was two different things, basically.”

Lopez returned to court Thursday morning.

Dressed in gray sweatpants and a gray sweatshirt, he pleaded guilty to participating in a conspiracy to launder drug money.

Sentencing is scheduled for May. Lopez faces a maximum of 20 years in federal prison.