A person recognized by authorities as Vicente Arellano-Buenrostro is seen on an spy’s secret video. (Northern California District Courtroom Information)
SAN MATEO — Since June 2021, undercover brokers have been quietly following two males utilizing surveillance and vehicles secretly rigged with hidden cameras to construct a firearms and methamphetamine gross sales case, courtroom data present.
Final week, unsealed courtroom data revealed federal costs towards brothers Vicente Arellano-Buenrostro Jr., and Juan Arellano, who stay in Santa Rita Jail in Dublin pending the end result of a detention listening to. Each are charged with conspiracy, unlicensed gun gross sales, and methamphetamine distribution, whereas Arellano-Buenrostro faces an extra cost alleging the sale of a machine gun.
In the course of the operation, led by the Drug Enforcement Administration and the San Mateo Sheriff, authorities purchased 14 weapons and 6 kilos of methamphetamine in undercover buys, a few of which had been caught on digital camera, in keeping with the felony criticism. The 14 weapons included do-it-yourself machine weapons and firearms with no serial numbers, generally generally known as ghost weapons, authorities say.
The lead defendant, Arellano-Buenrostro, is an East Palo Alto native who lives in Arizona. Throughout one meet-up with an undercover DEA agent, he allegedly defined that he acquired the firearms in Arizona and would ship them as much as “his boy” within the Bay Space for distribution, Joseph Centofranchi, a particular agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, & Explosives, wrote within the criticism.
On June 21, 2021, the agent allegedly requested Arellano for methamphetamine, and Arellano replied he didn’t have any however would “ask round” and “determine it out.” A number of one-pound methamphetamine buys adopted that dialog, the criticism alleges.
At one of many ultimate conferences, final December, Arellano-Buenrostro allegedly instructed the agent, “that he was acquiring 10 to fifteen Glocks at a gun present in Phoenix, Arizona, and that he was going to drive them again to the Bay Space,” Centofranchi wrote within the criticism.
Each males appeared in courtroom for the primary time final week, the place they had been learn their rights. They're each set to seem Wednesday earlier than a federal Justice of the Peace choose, who will determine whether or not to launch them or maintain them in custody, courtroom data present.