Two San Antonio men were sentenced to federal prison last week for conspiring to travel from Texas to Southern Oregon to commit an armed robbery while disguised as agents from the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).
The US Attorney's Office for the District of Oregon reports 24-year-old Jose Manuel Lopez was sentenced to 63 months in federal prison and 23-year-old Juan Carlos Conchas was sentenced to 40 months in federal prison. Both men were also sentenced to four years of supervised release and must pay restitution to the victim.
Court documents show that on March 12, 2022, the Josephine County Sheriff's Office responded to a residence on Pyle Drive after receiving reports of an armed robbery in progress. Deputies found a residence with a closed gate and two empty vehicles with Texas license plates in the driveway with their doors open.
Deputies saw several people running toward the back of the property and found victims inside the house. The victims reported that armed individuals dressed in what appeared to be DEA attire and wearing body armor arrived at the property and used zip ties and duct tape to restrain them.
Deputies searched the property and found large plastic totes containing packaged marijuana in the buildings and vehicles. They also found body armor, firearms, ammunition, shell casings and DEA badges along the path the defendants used to flee the property.
Investigators learned that in late February 2022, the group traveled from Texas to Josephine County to steal over 200 pounds of marijuana and recovered photos taken by the group in which they posed with guns while dressed as DEA agents.
Lopez and Conchas were located and arrested in San Antonio in October 2022. Four co-conspirators have pleaded guilty and been sentenced on felony charges stemming from their roles in the crime.
