OAKLAND — A man who prosecutors allege “profited greatly” through fentanyl sales in the Bay Area has been sentenced to seven years in federal prison, court records show.
Milton Varela-Arteaga, 29, was sentenced last month by U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer, after pleading guilty to possession with the intent to distribute fentanyl. He must serve a four-year supervised release term afterward, but because he’s already been deported to Honduras once, a similar fate likely awaits him after completion of his prison term, according to court records.
Varela-Arteaga was charged in 2024, after authorities raided his Oakland home and found four pounds of fentanyl, combined with other busts where a total of $96,000 in suspected drug money was seized, court records show. Authorities also say he was linked to an account containing $244,000, all of which was deposited from 2022 to 2023.
All of these things “demonstrate that Arteaga had connections to large fentanyl suppliers and greatly profited from the fentanyl trade at a time when San Francisco was seeing the highest number of overdose deaths ever recorded in the city,” prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memo. They also noted Varela-Arteaga was driving a “black Mercedes” when his home was raided in 2023.
Court records say Varela-Arteaga came to the United States in 2017, was deported in 2018, then returned sometime after that. In 2018, his father was one of 12 people killed in a massacre linked to gang extortion of the transportation industry in the Honduran capital of Comayagüela, according to court records and media reports. Varela-Arteaga first lived in Miami before coming to Oakland, court records say.
“He indicated he first tried cocaine in Honduras at the approximate age of 20 with his friends. By the age of 21, he became addicted to the drug and used it daily since his arrival in the United States,” Varela-Arteaga’s lawyer, Ramin Naderi, wrote in a sentencing memo. “Mr. Arteaga stated that upon moving to Oakland and while dealing fentanyl, he became addicted to being around it while other people used it. He noted he had to be around fentanyl, or he would otherwise feel sick … He is remorseful for his involvement, as this type of behavior is out of character for him.”
Varela-Arteaga’s cousin and co-defendant, 41-year-old Jose Medina-Murillo, is due in court on Sept. 10. He faces similar charges, which remain pending.