Valencia Rosas made a bundle promoting his profession from 2018 until December 2023, when he was indicted following an investigation into his activities. As part of that investigation, the Drug Enforcement Administration and other law enforcement agencies seized nearly 52 kilos of cocaine, more than 23 kilos of fentanyl pills and 131 kilos of marijuana.
“He used the lower-level members of the drug ring to take on higher risks.”
Operating from Washington State, his drug ring had expanded across the US, sending shipments as far east as Georgia.
And Valencia Rosas has now been sentenced to a decade in prison.
“Valencia Rosas was so successful that he could not traffic the drugs without bringing others into his criminal orbit,” Assistant United States Attorney Marci Ellsworth wrote to the court. “He could not move the hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash drug proceeds from Ohio and Georgia without more people driving cash back to him or flying with it stuffed into their bags.… None of those co-defendants made money from their involvement in the DTO [drug trafficking organization]. Only Valencia Rosas made money off the backs of his co-defendants.”
Valencia Rosas was indeed conducting a double scam: peddling poison as a passport to pleasure while bilking his recruits into believing they’d get paid.
They did not.
He promised them big bucks as drug couriers, posting on Snapchat how much money they’d make and the fabulous lifestyle they’d lead. As US District Judge Tiffany M. Cartwright said when sentencing him, “He used the lower-level members of the drug ring to take on higher risks.… Valencia Rosas was willing to recruit and sacrifice others to make more money.”
“The defendants in this case are all young—18–28 years old,” said US Attorney Tessa M. Gorman in announcing the sentencing. “Valencia Rosas, the ringleader of this trafficking group, actively enticed young people to join his criminal enterprise. On social media, he not only posted the drugs available for sale and their prices, he also attempted to portray the drug trafficking lifestyle as glamorous and lucrative, posting pictures of himself with firearms, flashy vehicles and cash. In reality, drug trafficking leaves destruction in its wake.”
Snapchat, for its part, was fooled. It kept running Valencia Rosas’ snake oil for four years. Finally, in December 2022, the platform pulled the plug and closed his account. But Valencia Rosas simply moved to another platform, Instagram, where he found a happy home and willing suckers for another year before his enterprise was brought down.
Goons like Joel Adrian Valencia Rosas count on the ignorance of their prey to lead their seedy, depraved existence. Hence the importance of nonprofits like Foundation for a Drug-Free World and its Truth About Drugs campaign, which arms youth and adults with the facts underlying the propaganda about party drugs, hallucinogens, heroin, opioids, fentanyl and more. Empowered with the truth, anyone, no matter how young, can withstand our culture’s glorification of the druggie life—in movies, TV and popular music—and through the occasional two-bit con artist like Valencia Rosas.
When you know what you’re getting into, you can call BS.
