Drug-runner taking orders from Pasco dealer shot up a home over $13K debt

A 27-year-old man will spend nearly 12 years in federal prison for distributing packages and collecting money as part of an Eastern Washington drug trafficking organization that stretched from Richland and Pasco to Moses Lake.

Eusebio Olvera Ruiz reportedly took over operations after his boss — the organization’s Pasco-based leader — was arrested and locked up, according to court documents.

Ruiz claimed the two met while harvesting vegetables. He then became a drug-runner for former co-worker Jose M. Lopez Orduno, moving methamphetamine, cocaine, heroin and fentanyl-laced pills around the Quincy and Moses Lake areas.

After Lopez Orduno’s arrest in December 2019, Ruiz fired 16 rounds at the Moses Lake house of a fellow drug-runner’s relative over a nearly $13,000 drug debt.

He agreed to do it for his incarcerated boss because he also owed $2,200 in drug money to Lopez Orduno, and they needed cash to help with the leader’s legal fees, court documents show.

Ruiz was arrested a month after the drive-by shooting during a traffic stop in Grant County. Sheriff’s deputies found cocaine, a digital scale, a pistol holster, ammunition and multiple cellphones in his car.

Ruiz admitted having cocaine in his car but said it did not belong to him. He further told investigators that “he was working with the FBI and that he was transporting it as part of a sting for Richland,” documents said.

Faces deportation

Ruiz pleaded guilty in January in Yakima’s U.S. District Court to one count of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute 50 grams of methamphetamine.

The Quincy man was sentenced last week by Chief Judge Stanley A. Bastian to an 11-year, 8-month prison term.

However, after his release, Ruiz is expected to be deported because he is a Mexican citizen, according to the Department of Justice.

Joseph H. Harrington, the acting U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Washington, commended the law enforcement officers with the federal and local agencies who investigated the drug-trafficking case.

In addition to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Safe Streets Task Force in the Tri-Cities, those local agencies include Kennewick, Richland and Pasco police and the Benton County Sheriff’s Office.

“Their seamless partnership resulted in the successful outcome of this matter,” Harrington said in a news release.

3 await sentencing

The cases of Ruiz’s four co-defendants are at varying stages in the judicial process.

The 25-year-old leader, Lopez Orduno, pleaded guilty in February to conspiracy to distribute meth and possession of stolen guns.

Lopez Orduno and his partner, Angelica V. Sanchez, reportedly lived in northeast Pasco, but also had addresses in Yakima and Grant counties.

One court document said the couple are husband and wife, while another identified them as boyfriend and girlfriend.

Sanchez, 27, is serving 6 1/2 years for her guilty pleas to conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute meth and intent to distribute fentanyl.

She transported and distributed the drugs for Lopez Orduno.

Johhny M. Savala also pleaded guilty to conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute meth.

It was a relative of Savala whose Moses Lake home was fired at early on Jan. 1, 2020, because of his significant drug debt to Lopez Orduno.

Reymundo Garcia admitted conspiracy to distribute meth.

Lopez Orduno, Savala and Garcia all have sentencing hearings set in August.

Drugs, guns seized

Court proceedings and documents reveal that in conducting multiple search warrants, investigators seized multiple pounds of meth, several hundred fentanyl-laced pills, heroin and numerous stolen guns and ammo.

Judge Bastian, at sentencing, found that Ruiz should receive two enhancements for possessing guns used to intimidate and threaten people who owed money to the drug trafficking organization.

He also found that Ruiz committed an act of violence when he participated in the drive-by shooting under Lopez Orduno’s direction.

The Safe Streets Task Force was contacted in November 2019 by three people about the drug operation.

The people, who became cooperating witnesses for investigators, said they were afraid of Lopez Orduno because they owed him money.

One of them tipped off the task force the following month that Lopez Orduno was going to be parked outside the Franklin County Courthouse in Pasco with at least 1 kilogram of drugs inside his SUV.

The SUV, stopped by a Pasco police officer, had several air fresheners inside that are allegedly used to try to mask the drug odor.

Lopez Orduno, when frisked, had $1,500 in his pants pocket and $1,000 hidden in one of his socks, along with drugs and a stolen pistol inside a backpack and two wrapped pistols hidden in the driver’s seat.

The following day, investigators got word that Sanchez was trying to get a ride from a Quincy motel since Lopez Orduno was locked up.

She was collecting drug debts and trying to sell the rest of her drug supply to raise bail for her husband, court documents said.

A black safe with seven packages of meth, heroin and 100 “Mexis,” or fentanyl-laced pills, was found under the motel room bed. Investigators also found pistol magazines, shotgun shells, ammunition, a pistol and more drugs elsewhere in the room, documents said.