Overview

• Benally admitted to 15 counts that include drug-trafficking conspiracies, manufacturing and possession with intent to distribute, maintaining drug premises, Clean Water Act violations, firearm possession in furtherance of trafficking, unlawful employment and harboring of undocumented workers, pesticide smuggling, and concealing records.
• Court filings detail more than 30 farms across 400+ acres with over 1,100 greenhouses between 2018 and 2020, with November 2020 seizures of about 260,000 plants and 60,000 pounds of processed marijuana.
• Prosecutors say Benally and an associate formed front companies in California to solicit Chinese investors, charging $20,000–$50,000 for fake cultivation licenses and misleading them to believe they were growing hemp.
• A separate Estancia operation ran from 2022 to January 2025 after a state license was revoked on December 23, 2023 with a $1 million fine, and a January 23, 2025 raid recovered roughly 8,500 pounds of marijuana, cash, illegal pesticides, methamphetamine, firearms, and a bulletproof vest.
• Under the plea, Benally faces a mandatory minimum of 15 years and up to life in prison with substantial fines and supervised release, following a multiagency probe involving the FBI, EPA, BIA, DEA, IRS, Navajo Nation Police, and local authorities.