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A 53-year-old Federal Way man received a three-year prison sentence for his role in a drug trafficking conspiracy that preyed, in part, on unhoused people in “The Jungle” under Interstate-5 and Seattle’s International District.
A judge sentenced Leonardo Rojas Cruz on Sept. 30 in U.S. District Court in Seattle, according to a U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) press release.
Rojas Cruz was indicted in May 2025, following a lengthy wiretap investigation. Rojas Cruz was a redistributor of cocaine and methamphetamine ordering up multiple pound quantities of the drugs.
At the sentencing hearing U.S. District Judge Tana Lin noted that cocaine users, such as Rojas Cruz, were particularly vulnerable to overdose because cocaine and fentanyl powder are very similar in appearance.
“You not only gambled with your own life but with the lives of others as well,” Lin told him in court.
Acting U.S. Attorney Neil Floyd issued the following statement:
“In March 2025 alone, law enforcement seized 100 pounds of methamphetamine, 111 kilos of cocaine, 19 kilos of fentanyl powder, 250,000 fentanyl pills, and four kilos of heroin as they investigated this drug ring and a related one,” Floyd said. “The street value of those narcotics is nearly $3 million – but the damage to our community due to addiction, crime and deaths far surpasses that number.”
On May 29, 2025, law enforcement executed 16 search warrants in Federal Way, Vancouver, Everett, Pacific, Tukwila, Kent, Issaquah and Seattle, along with Woodlake, California and Beaverton, Oregon, according to the DOJ. Investigators seized more than seven kilograms of cocaine, 18 kilograms of methamphetamine, more than 57,000 fentanyl pills, and 17 firearms. They also seized more than $353,000 in cash.
Rojas Cruz is a Mexican national with a prior federal conviction for drug trafficking in the Eastern District of Washington, according to the DOJ. In 1991 he was sentenced to more than five years in prison. Nevertheless, he returned to drug trafficking for an extended period of time. Rojas Cruz will likely be deported following his prison term.
Prosecutors wrote to the court:
“Rojas Cruz trafficked two of the three leading causes of overdose in King County – cocaine and methamphetamine. And he was not merely trafficking a small amount. In fact, the intercepts show Rojas Cruz purchased substantial quantities of cocaine from his co-defendant over a short amount of time, which provides circumstantial evidence of Rojas Cruz’s trafficking activities. Moreover, he was involved in trafficking controlled substances over a long period of time.
“Investigators identified Rojas Cruz as a trafficker through communications intercepted in October 2024 and then, after the investigation of Ibarra Loera resumed in 2025, Rojas Cruz was intercepted discussing the sale of a pound of methamphetamine in February 2025 too.”
These coconspirators have already been sentenced:
• Daniel Ibarra Loera, 32, of Kent — 96 months in prison
• Jose Garcia Corona, 62, of Seattle — 15 months in prison
• Oscar Omar Serrano Serrano, 32, of Algona — 30 months in prison
• Juan Lopez Roblero, 44, of Tukwila — 12 months in prison
• Giovanni Antonio Garduno Garcia, 47, of Issaquah – 72 months in prison
Sang Su, 44, Seattle, is scheduled for sentencing on Nov. 4, 2026.
