When federal agents descended on two food markets this month in Colorado Springs, they claimed the restaurant-grocery stores profited from illegal drug trafficking and/or “enabled” the laundering of “illicit proceeds.”

But David Garcia, the son of the owner of the business targeted, El Ranchito, says his family is not selling drugs or laundering money. Instead, the family is helping the Latino community by sending money to families abroad. 

Feds raid 2 food markets in Colorado Springs

During the Aug. 13 operation, at least 20 agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration and other federal organizations, including Homeland Security Investigations, flooded into El Ranchito, 3950 Airport Road, and El Ranchito No. 2, 3815 Maizeland Road, in an apparent money laundering investigation.

DEA agents arrived in unmarked cars, blocking off entrances with the help of local law enforcement. Agents from the FBI, IRS and DHS’ Enforcement and Removal Operations were seen at the location off Airport road.

The DEA released a statement later that evening saying the Colorado Springs operation and a related operation in Denver prioritized those “who profited from the trafficking of illegal drugs and those who have enabled the laundering of illicit proceeds.”

Garcia said law enforcement officials seized several thousand dollars from both stores.

“They left us with not even a dollar,” Garcia said. “We pretty much got robbed by the feds in broad daylight at this point. That’s how it feels because nobody has come back.”

Garcia said agents seemed to be interested in the companies the business uses for people to send money to their families in Mexico and elsewhere.   

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“They started unplugging phones, taking laptops, whatever we use for those companies,” he said. “They even took our register lady to the back and interrogated her, yelling at her and asking them about us and how we do money transfers. … She told me she felt violated.”

At El Ranchito No. 2, a nephew, Jose Aguirre, claims he was assaulted by the agents after he was allegedly pushed against a counter for recording the incident. Aguirre claims the officers never gave their names or badge numbers when the family asked them to provide that information.

Aguirre was there to get something to eat when officers rushed in. Then he started recording, and the officers told him not to, according to Aguirre.

A 10-second video taken by Aguirre shows a masked officer with sunglasses walking up to him as he gets up from a chair inside the restaurant portion of the business.

In the video, Aguirre is heard saying, “Don’t touch me, bro,” to which the officer responds: “You’re being detained. Turn around,” before pushing him against a glass counter and saying, “I told you, bro. I told you, bro — you didn’t want to listen.”

“My mom even said she thought they were going to break the glass because of how hard they slammed him,” Garcia said. “After that, they (the agents) got a sense that these people know their rights. Let’s be cordial. … That’s how I feel, at least.”

Garcia claims that agents “trashed” the location off Airport Road and destroyed their safe instead of asking the owners to open it. He believes the agents took advantage of the fact that the employees weren’t fluent in English. 

“They took all of the money and didn’t even count it in (front) of them. On the paper they left us saying what it was that they took, there was supposed to be an amount, but there wasn’t,” Garcia said. 

Reporters saw DEA agents carrying out evidence boxes at both locations, taking four El Ranchito employees with them. Garcia also claims that the agents took the security footage from both locations without explaining why. 

According to Garcia and David Huerta, the family’s accountant, federal agents detained two cashiers, a butcher and a cook. The cook, Jose Luis Aguilar, was supposedly taken to an ICE facility in Aurora, but the butcher’s whereabouts are unknown. The two cashiers were let go.

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The Gazette reached out to ICE officials and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Colorado asking for the whereabouts of the two men. The attorney’s office declined to comment. ICE said “specific details” can’t be disclosed “at this time.”

“HSI and its law enforcement partners have prioritized targeting transnational criminal organizations that exploit the financials system to launder illicit funds,” the agency said in an email.

As advertised on the windows at both locations, El Ranchito uses at least two Mexican companies, Grupo Elektra and Boss Revolution, for money transfers. The two companies provide financial services to consumers across various countries, including in Latin America.

Huerta told The Gazette that the business primarily uses it for people who need to transfer money to their family. 

Garcia said El Ranchito receive $1 for every transaction. He claimed that agents took money meant for the transfers and also money from the cash registers at both stores, totaling about $4,000.

Since the raids, Garcia says their name has been tarnished and people have been scared to enter their locations. Still, the family reopened the day after the raid and continues to provide services to people who wish to stick around — something they’ve been doing for more than 20 years.

Business records from the Colorado Secretary of State’s Office show that El Ranchito opened in 2010, and its second location opened three years later. Another location opened in 2004 under Huerta’s father, Ricardo, but records show it is in delinquent status since 2011, meaning it does not meet state compliance.  

“If we were selling drugs or laundering money, you think we still would’ve been open? They (the DEA) would have closed off the doors, put tape around the building and said, ‘Hey, it’s closed,'” Garcia said.

Federal agents carried out an operation simultaneously in Denver, according to the DEA. Not much is known of what transpired, but Garcia heard through the grapevine that agents raided other Mexican restaurants.

The DEA said in an email that it does not “confirm or comment” on active investigations.

In 2019, a food distribution company and six local Mexican restaurants were linked to the Sinaloa Cartel and drug lords Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán-Loera and Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada Garcia, according to a federal complaint released at the time. The complaint was the first evidence of cartels operating in Colorado Springs.

The complaint alleged El Potosino — which means “the one from San Luis Potosi, Mexico,” an area associated with drug cartels — was used as a front company to funnel drug money through Mexican restaurants in Colorado and Wyoming. 

Authorities seized more than $1.5 million from 15 bank accounts and two safety deposit boxes linked to Colorado Springs restaurants. Those restaurants were three Taco Star eateries, at 318 N. Wahsatch Ave., 7434 Ridgewood Drive and 605 N. Circle Drive; two Monica’s Taco Shops, at 30 E. Fillmore St. and 5829 Palmer Park Blvd.; and the Albertacos at 4494 Austin Bluffs Parkway.

This is not the first time that the Garcias were involved in a criminal investigation, but it is the first time they’re the suspects. In 2010, an El Ranchito employee, 62-year-old Esteban Garcia, who was Garcia’s grandfather, was shot and killed in an attempted robbery outside the business. Three people were convicted in his murder.