California man indicted for drug distribution & money laundering conspiracies

Date: April 16, 2026

Contact: [email protected]

Pensacola, FL - Kelvin Henriques Jr. of Los Angeles, California, was indicted by a federal grand jury charging him with conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute methamphetamine and fentanyl and conspiracy to commit money laundering. John P. Heekin, United States Attorney for the Northern District of Florida, announced the charges today.

Henriques appeared for his arraignment in federal court before United States Magistrate Judge Zachary C. Bolitho in Pensacola, Florida. Jury trial is scheduled for May 18, 2026, at 9:00 am before District Court Judge T. Kent Wetherell, II.

If convicted, Henriques faces a minimum mandatory sentence of 10 years' imprisonment up to life in prison for the drug count and up to 20 years' imprisonment for the money laundering count.

The case is the result of a joint investigation by Internal Revenue Service-Criminal Investigation, the Drug Enforcement Administration, Homeland Security Investigations, U.S. Postal Inspection Service, and the Okaloosa County Sheriff's Office, with assistance from the Gulf Coast High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas (HIDTA) Task Force. Assistant United States Attorney Alicia H. Forbes is prosecuting the case.

This prosecution is part of the Homeland Security Task Force (HSTF) initiative established by Executive Order 14159, Protecting the American People Against Invasion. The HSTF is a whole-of-government partnership dedicated to eliminating criminal cartels, foreign gangs, transnational criminal organizations, and human smuggling and trafficking rings operating in the United States and abroad. Through historic interagency collaboration, the HSTF directs the full might of United States law enforcement towards identifying, investigating, and prosecuting the full spectrum of crimes committed by these organizations, which have long fueled violence and instability within our borders. In performing this work, the HSTF places special emphasis on investigating and prosecuting those engaged in child trafficking or other crimes involving children. The HSTF further utilizes all available tools to prosecute and remove the most violent criminal aliens from the United States. HSTF comprises agents and officers from multiple agencies with the prosecution being led by the United States Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Florida.

IRS-CI is the law enforcement arm of the IRS, responsible for conducting financial crime investigations, including tax fraud, narcotics trafficking, money laundering, public corruption, healthcare fraud, identity theft and more. It is the only federal law enforcement agency with investigative jurisdiction over violations of the Internal Revenue Code. IRS-CI has 18 field offices located across the U.S. and maintains an international presence through attaché posts abroad.