Date: June 2, 2025
Contact: newsroom@ci.irs.gov
A man who conspired with others to distribute methamphetamine and launder money was sentenced today to 30 years in federal prison.
Francisco Murillo, from San Bernardino, California, received the prison term after a Dec. 20, 2024, guilty plea to one count of conspiracy to distribute a controlled substance and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering.
Evidence at the plea and sentencing hearings showed that Murillo was involved in a large-scale drug trafficking organization that was responsible for sending methamphetamine from California to Iowa through the United States Postal Service. Murillo and others in California sent packages containing methamphetamine through the United States Postal Service to several addresses in Cedar Rapids. Murillo’s co-conspirators in Iowa sent the cash proceeds from the distribution of controlled substances back to California in packages that listed fake names and return addresses.
Murillo was sentenced in Cedar Rapids by United States District Court Chief Judge C.J. Williams. Murillo was sentenced to 360 months’ imprisonment. He must also serve a five-year term of supervised release after the prison term. There is no parole in the federal system.
Murillo is being held in the United States Marshal’s custody until he can be transported to a federal prison.
The case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Adam J. Vander Stoep and was investigated by the Internal Revenue Service, the United States Postal Inspection Service, and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) Task Force. The DEA Task Force consists of the DEA, the Linn County Sheriff's Office, the Cedar Rapids Police Department, the Marion Police Department, and the Iowa Division of Narcotics Enforcement. This effort is part of an Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces (OCDETF) operation. OCDETF identifies, disrupts, and dismantles the highest-level criminal organizations that threaten the United States using a prosecutor-led, intelligence-driven, multiagency approach.
IRS-CI is the criminal investigative arm of the IRS, responsible for conducting financial crime investigations, including tax fraud, narcotics trafficking, money-laundering, public corruption, healthcare fraud, identity theft and more. IRS-CI special agents are the only federal law enforcement agents with investigative jurisdiction over violations of the Internal Revenue Code, obtaining a 90% federal conviction rate. The agency has 20 field offices located across the U.S. and 14 attaché posts abroad.