Deported Again, He Returns to Flood Nevada with Fentanyl – Ten Years Behind Bars

Marco Antonio Quezada-Ramirez has received a full ten-year prison sentence—along with five years of supervised release—for conspiring to traffic fentanyl across state lines, from Nevada to Colorado and California. This isn’t a case of someone quietly overstaying a visa—it’s a deliberate, high-stakes drug operation led by a twice-deported Mexican national who chose criminality over citizenship.

Court documents show that Quezada-Ramirez admitted to selling hundreds of fentanyl pills in mid-2023 and handling a massive shipment of around 30,000 pills—all intercepted during a traffic stop in Las Vegas that also uncovered cocaine and heroin  . That seizure alone could have prevented any number of potential overdoses or deaths in our communities.

This case underscores two alarming realities: a border system too easy to exploit, and a drug crisis that continues to devastate American families. Without stricter enforcement, our neighborhoods remain vulnerable to deadly narcotics traffickers who re-enter illegally and prey on the vulnerable.

Credit is due to the DEA and the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department for neutralizing this threat. But as long as illegal entry is followed by distribution of life-threatening substances, national security and public safety will remain jeopardized.

We must ask ourselves: is it acceptable for foreign nationals removed from the country to return and facilitate mass drug distribution? What price are Americans paying for our lax border policies? We need accountability, not excuses.

Source: U.S. Attorney’s Office