Joanne was the last person anyone had suspected of being a drug trafficker! The grandmother (and part-time Paula Deen lookalike) worked as executive director of the San Jose Police Officers’ Association by day, and allegedly as a key player in a global fentanyl ring also by day. I challenge you to find a legacy media article about this case that doesn’t pop a Breaking Bad reference. Actually, don’t waste your time since those won’t teach you anything useful. I’m the one who knocks.

Alleged Offense

Attempt to unlawfully import a controlled substance

Overview

Joanne’s woes appear to begin in late 2022, when Homeland Security agents were investigating a network of Indian-produced controlled substances. According to the criminal complaint, agents managed to seize the phone of a network operative. This phone contained two messages addressed to “J Segovia,” as well as Segovia’s personal address.

U.S. Customs and Border Protections records showed that officials had seized five packages that had been sent to Segovia’s address between 2019 and 2023. These packages included thousands of pills.

CBP records also showed that Segovia received a large volume of mail to her house (61 packages in ~7 years) from several different countries.

On February 1, 2023 Segovia conducted a voluntary interview with Homeland Security agents. Don’t do this. If LE wants to talk then it’s time to get a lawyer.

Next, Segovia gave LE permission to access her WhatsApp communications. The investigation came full circle when they discovered communications with an Indian number discussing drug shipments, including those that had been seized previously. Also included were UPS receipts that featured Segovia’s work address as the return address. Don’t use your day job’s address to traffic drugs. It’s an even worse idea than using your home address, imo. One hilarious piece of evidence is what appears to be a picture of Segovia’s computer in her home office, made identifiable by a heart-shaped sticker.

According to the criminal complaint Segovia’s CashApp had also conducted transactions with accounts flagged for drug trafficking.

tl;dr

The GOOD: Segovia was the executive director of the San Jose Police Officer’s Association and appears to have been well-regarded. Her position would have provided her with a lot of insight to LE operations and could have provided her with potentially useful info that could have helped her do things like secure addresses that would have given her a degree of plausible deniability. Whether or not she leveraged her position isn’t clear at this time.

The BAD: Using your home and work addresses for drug shipments. Sending dirty evil drug money to your CashApp account. Talking to LE without a lawyer. Volunteering up the smoking gun to LE without any sort of deal. Talking to LE without a lawyer. Bad picture OpSec. MULTIPLE (!!!!) love letters ignored.

The UGLY: Trying to blame the housekeeper. Honestly, if the walls are closing in you could at least go down with a little bit of dignity, rather than blaming people who are (probably) innocent.