Massachusetts man sentenced to prison for role in southeastern Massachusetts drug trafficking ring

BOSTON – A Boston man was sentenced Tuesday in federal court in Boston for his role in a wide-ranging cocaine trafficking conspiracy.

Luis Mejia Guerrero, 61, was sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Nathaniel M. Gorton to 37 months in prison and two years of supervised release. On Dec. 6, 2021, Guerrero pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute and to possess with intent to distribute 500 grams or more of cocaine.

According to court documents, in the fall of 2018, law enforcement began investigating a violent Brockton drug crew led by Djuna Goncalves. The investigation revealed that Goncalves worked with others to distribute large quantities of fentanyl, heroin, cocaine, cocaine base and marijuana throughout southeastern Massachusetts from a base of operations at a family home in Brockton. The neighborhood surrounding the crew’s Brockton base has been the scene of numerous murders, shootings and other crimes of violence for several years.

The investigation identified Guerrero and other members of his Boston-based drug cell as cocaine suppliers to Goncalves’s crew. Guerrero and others distributed cocaine on a daily basis out of a stash house in Dorchester. Intercepted communications indicated that Guerrero negotiated cocaine deals for co-conspirators and delivered drugs to customers. In May 2019, Guerrero was arrested along with his partner, Luis Alfredo Baez, after a kilogram of cocaine being transported to the stash house was intercepted.

On June 23, 2021, Baez was sentenced by Judge Gorton to 41 months in prison. Goncalves pleaded guilty on Oct. 7, 2021 and is scheduled to be sentenced on May 19, 2022.

In total, 17 individuals were indicted in wide-ranging drug trafficking conspiracy reaching from Boston to Brockton to Lawrence to Cape Cod. Guerrero is the 13th defendant to be sentenced in this case.

United States Attorney Rachael S. Rollins; Matthew B. Millhollin, Special Agent in Charge of Homeland Security Investigations in Boston; Brian D. Boyle, Special Agent in Charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration, New England Field Division; Colonel Christopher Mason, Superintendent of the Massachusetts State Police; Plymouth County District Attorney Timothy J. Cruz; and Brockton Police Acting Chief Steve Williamson made the announcement. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Christopher Pohl and Alathea E. Porter of Rollins’ Narcotics & Money Laundering Unit prosecuted the case.

This effort is part of an Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces (OCDETF) operation.