A Mexican Army expert shows crystal meth paste at a clandestine laboratory near la Rumorosa town in Tecate, Baja California state, Mexico on August 28, 2018. - According to the Army, the lab can produce up to 200 kilograms of the crystal meth daily. On the same operation the Army destroyed two marihuana plantations with a total surface area of 19,000 square meters. (Photo by Guillermo Arias / AFP) (Photo credit should read GUILLERMO ARIAS/AFP via Getty Images)
Fresno, California – A Madera man at the center of a Central Valley drug trafficking operation has been sentenced to more than two decades in federal prison for distributing fentanyl and methamphetamine, federal prosecutors announced Tuesday.
Emilio Hernandez Yesca, 31, was sentenced to 21 years and 10 months in prison by U.S. District Judge Jennifer L. Thurston. His sentencing marks the culmination of a multi-agency investigation that traced a steady flow of synthetic drugs through California’s Central Valley at a time when fentanyl overdose deaths have surged to record highs across the country.
According to court documents, Hernandez and co-defendant Jorge Perez, 28, also of Madera, led a trafficking network responsible for distributing thousands of fentanyl pills and several pounds of methamphetamine between October 2020 and March 2021. Federal prosecutors detailed a pattern of escalating sales: 1,400 fentanyl pills sold across two transactions in the fall of 2020, followed by the sale of a pound of methamphetamine in early 2021. Their operation came to an end on March 2, 2021, when law enforcement stopped the pair en route to deliver 5,000 fentanyl pills and three pounds of methamphetamine. A loaded firearm was found beneath the driver’s seat.
Perez was sentenced earlier this year to 11 years and 10 months in federal prison.
The case was led by Homeland Security Investigations in coordination with the Drug Enforcement Administration and local law enforcement agencies, including the Madera County Sheriff’s Office, California Highway Patrol, and several municipal police departments. The joint effort was part of the federal Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces (OCDETF) initiative, which targets high-level criminal enterprises through a collaborative, intelligence-driven approach.
This investigation also falls under the Department of Justice’s Operation Synthetic Opioid Surge (S.O.S.), a national strategy launched in 2018 to curb the supply of synthetic opioids in high-impact areas. The Eastern District of California is one of ten regions selected for the program, reflecting the growing role the Central Valley plays as a corridor for large-scale narcotics distribution.
The scale of the operation — and the quantity of fentanyl involved — underscores the Justice Department’s heightened focus on synthetic opioids, which are fueling an increasingly deadly public health crisis. While the court’s sentence concludes this particular prosecution, it also highlights the persistence of trafficking networks in rural California communities, where small cities like Madera are not immune to the national consequences of synthetic drug proliferation.
