Mexican Man Involved in Mexico Based Drug Trafficking Organization Found Guilty in Federal Court

A Mexican man involved in a Mexico‑based drug trafficking organization that was distributing significant amounts of methamphetamine in the Waterloo, Iowa, area was convicted by a jury today after a three‑day trial in federal court in Cedar Rapids. 

Luis Carlos Corral Lopez, age 31, from Caborca, Sonora, Mexico, was convicted of one count of conspiracy to distribute a controlled substance. The verdict was returned this afternoon following about five hours of jury deliberations. 

The evidence at trial showed that, in late November or early December 2020, Corral Lopez was sent by a Mexico‑based drug trafficking organization to Waterloo to oversee the organization’s distribution of methamphetamine in the Waterloo area. After he arrived, Corral Lopez acquired approximately twenty‑two pounds of methamphetamine. Corral Lopez then distributed all of the methamphetamine to street‑level distributors in the Waterloo area. 

The evidence at trial also showed that, between January 2020 and January 2022, law enforcement had seized almost two hundred pounds of methamphetamine and twenty‑three pounds of fentanyl from the Mexico‑based organization. 

Sentencing before United States District Court Judge C.J. Williams will be set after a presentence report is prepared. Corral Lopez remains in custody of the United States Marshal pending sentencing. Corral Lopez faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years’ imprisonment and a possible maximum sentence of life imprisonment, a $10,000,000 fine, and a lifetime term of supervised release following any imprisonment.

The case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys Dillan Edwards and Ashley Corkery, and it was investigated as part of the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF) program of the United States Department of Justice through a cooperative effort of the Federal Bureau of Investigation; the Tri-County Drug Enforcement Task Force consisting of the Waterloo Police Department, Cedar Falls Police Department, Black Hawk County Sheriff’s Department, Evansdale Police Department, Waverly Police Department, Hudson Police Department, La Porte City Police Department, and the Bremer County Sheriff’s Department; the Iowa Division of Narcotics Enforcement; the Drug Enforcement Administration; the United States Postal Inspection Service; and Homeland Security Investigations. 

Court file information at https://ecf.iand.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/login.pl. 

The case file number is 22-CR-02039-CJW.

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