Retired State Police lieutenant faces drug trafficking charges

Carlos Antonio Perea got into a new line of work after retiring as a lieutenant with the New Mexico State Police.

Federal court records allege he turned to a life of crime as an employee of a drug cartel and hoped he could improve illicit trafficking operations with the skills he learned in law enforcement.

But at the time of his arrest on Aug. 5, Perea hadn’t yet told his employer, a purported cartel-related drug trafficking organization, that he was a former police officer, according to a criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Albuquerque.

His account was detailed in a criminal complaint filed by a State Police task force officer who caught Perea allegedly transporting numerous large packages of fentanyl pills. Perea and passenger Catherine Anne Schmidt were arrested after an early morning traffic stop on eastbound Interstate 40 in Cibola County, court records state.

Perea and Schmidt were indicted Tuesday by a federal grand jury in Albuquerque on felony charges of possession with intent to distribute 400 grams or more of fentanyl, and conspiracy.

Perea was released to an Albuquerque halfway house pending resolution of the criminal case. Schmidt was to enter in-patient treatment for 90 days.

Attorneys for Perea and Schmidt could not be reached Friday.

Perea, 55, retired from State Police in 2019 as a lieutenant with the agency’s Commercial Vehicle Enforcement unit. A State Police spokesman said Perea started with the agency in 2006.

The arresting officer, Julian Armijo, wrote in a criminal complaint that he had noticed the vehicle swerve in the right lane of traffic and cross “the white fog line” on the roadway, so he decided to pull the vehicle over. Armijo was assigned as a task force officer with the Department of Homeland Security Investigations at the time.

Once stopped, Perea told Armijo he was a former State Police lieutenant, but had lost his driver’s license. Perea said he and Schmidt were traveling back to Albuquerque after looking at houses and property to buy in Arizona for three days. Schmidt had a different story, relating that they were “just visiting” in Arizona for two days.

A State Police K-9 on the scene did a “free air sniff” of the vehicle, alerting to the odor of drugs, prompting the search that turned up the drugs. Later, Armijo and another State Police officer discovered two “extremely heavy” spare tires in the trunk of the sedan, which later turned out to be filled with a total of 63.79 kilograms of fentanyl pills.

Armijo said that Perea agreed to be interviewed after his arrest.

After retiring from the State Police, he went to work for ABF Freight System Inc., the complaint states.

Perea stated that “he often would imagine how easy it would have been for him to transport drugs using his ABF business vehicle, because he traveled frequently between Albuquerque and Phoenix.”

It wasn’t clear from the complaint if Perea still worked for the freight company. The Journal couldn’t reach company representatives about his status on Friday.

At some point, Perea began making multiple trips to California, Phoenix and Roswell transporting drugs, the complaint stated. He didn’t usually know what type of drugs he was transporting, “but knew his activities were illegal.”

For normal pickups or dropoffs, the complaint states, he and Schmidt would be instructed to leave their car at a specified location. When they returned later, the car would be loaded with drugs and they would drive back to a local park in Albuquerque where the car would be unloaded by another person or persons.

“Perea indicated that his previous experience, skills and knowledge of police work aided him in his ability to transport drugs successfully and undetected,” the complaint states.

“Perea indicated that he had not told his employer (drug trafficking organization), whom he believed to be cartel-related, that he was a former police officer,” according to the complaint.

However, he told investigators he intended “on doing so to suggest methods on improving their trafficking operations.”

State court records show at the time of his arrest on federal charges, Perea was awaiting trial in state district court in Valencia County on a charge of possession of a controlled substance (methamphetamine).

Last September, Perea was arrested for concealing his identity during a traffic stop, but the case was dismissed. In 2023, Perea went to a diversion program after being arrested on a charge of possession of fentanyl.

In June 2023, Perea was charged with shoplifting at the Big R store on the Santa Ana Pueblo, but that charge was dismissed by prosecutors.