Las Vegas Woman Sentenced to 188 Months for Role in Mailing 83 Pounds of Methamphetamine to Columbus and Filing False Tax Claims Worth Over $500,000
A Las Vegas woman who took part in a large-scale operation that mailed methamphetamine from California and Las Vegas to central Ohio was sentenced in U.S. District Court in Columbus on October 27 to 188 months in prison, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Ohio announced. The government seized approximately 83 pounds of methamphetamine in the case.
Tiauna Castro, 36, of Las Vegas, mailed drug packages from Las Vegas to Columbus. According to court documents, investigators with the U.S. Postal Inspection Service and the Central Ohio High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area Task Force identified at least 128 mail parcels believed to contain methamphetamine during a 2021 investigation, and Castro and seven co-defendants were indicted for the drug conspiracy in April 2022. As part of the conspiracy, Castro met with bulk narcotics distributors, negotiated prices, bought bulk amounts of narcotics, stored them, repackaged them for shipping and sent them out through the U.S. Mail.
While the case was pending, Castro also committed more than half a million dollars in tax fraud, filing false federal tax forms related to two sham businesses and receiving more than $500,000 in refunds to which she was not entitled. She was charged with tax fraud in January 2025 while on pretrial release for the drug charges.
Castro pleaded guilty in March 2026 to conspiring to distribute methamphetamine and submitting false claims. U.S. Attorney Dominick S. Gerace II and Lesley Allison, Inspector in Charge of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, announced the sentence imposed by U.S. District Court Judge Michael H. Watson. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Timothy D. Prichard and Emily Czerniejewski are prosecuting the case.
Source: GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：位于 Columbus 的 Joseph P. Kinneary 联邦法院大楼（中景砂岩建筑），本案在此判刑。照片：Ɱ，CC BY-SA 4.0，经维基共享资源。 / The Joseph P. Kinneary U.S. Courthouse in Columbus, Ohio, where the sentence was imposed. Photo: Ɱ, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
