United States of America v. Jose Humberto Morales

Houston, Texas criminal defense lawyer represented the Defendant charged with possession with intent to distribute meth i

Charleston Man Sentenced to 7 Years in Federal Prison for Gun Charge

A Romanian national convicted of plotting to traffic hundreds of kilograms of cocaine from the United States in a scheme that also included money laundering, arms trafficking, and an attempt to assassinate rival gang members, was sentenced to 25 years in federal prison in the Eastern District of Texas, announced U.S. Attorney Damien M. Diggs.



Marius Lazar, 51, of Bucharest, Romania, was sentenced to 300 months in federal prison by U.S. District Judge Marcia A. Crone on January 15, 2025.



According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, Lazar was a "founding member” of his local chapter of the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club, a transnational outlaw motorcycle gang that was founded in the United States and is now active on six continents. Through his relationship with a fellow Hells Angels member from New Zealand, Lazar joined a conspiracy to purchase more than 400 kilograms of cocaine from a person in the United States, who the conspirators believed was a powerful drug trafficker but who was actually an undercover agent of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). As part of his negotiations for the cocaine purchase, Lazar also solicited the undercover agent to kill two members of a rival motorcycle club in Romania, and offered to supply the undercover with rifles, grenades, armored vehicles, and other military-grade equipment that Lazar understood would be used against police officers in the United States. Members of the conspiracy sent nearly $1 million to the United States, via bank wires and Bitcoin transfers, as payment for the drugs and murders.



On November 17, 2023, a federal jury in Beaumont convicted Lazar of conspiracy to commit racketeering, conspiracy to import cocaine into the United States, and conspiracy to commit money laundering.



Co-defendants Murray Michael Matthews and Marc Patrick Johnson remain fugitives.



The DEA, Homeland Security Investigations, U.S. Marshals Service, and Internal Revenue Service – Criminal Investigations investigated the case, with significant assistance from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.



Assistant U.S. Attorney Christopher Rapp for the Eastern District of Texas, Assistant U.S. Attorney Conor Mulroe, formerly of the Criminal Division's Violent Crime and Racketeering Section (VCRS) and currently for the U.S. Attorney's Office District of Columbia, and VCRS Trial Attorney Jared Engelking prosecuted the case.



The Justice Department's Office of International Affairs worked with law enforcement partners in Romania to secure the arrest and extradition of Lazar.



This case is part of an Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces (OCDETF) investigation. OCDETF identifies, disrupts, and dismantles the highest-level criminal organizations that threaten the United States using a prosecutor-led, intelligence-driven,