DALLAS — A New Mexico woman who concealed a deadly dose of fentanyl inside her children’s luggage to get the drugs to their father has pleaded guilty to a federal drug crime, according to U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas Leigha Simonton.
Magdalena Silva Banuelos, 47, was indicted in November 2022 with distribution of a controlled substance that resulted in death. That charge carried a penalty of a mandatory minimum of 20 years and up to life in federal prison.
On Wednesday, she took a plea deal on a charge of distribution of fentanyl, a charge that carries up to 12 years in prison. In plea papers, she admitted she gave her sons’ father the fentanyl that killed him, officials said.
On May 31, 2022, Silva Banuelos put her sons, ages 8 and 10, onto a flight from Albuquerque to Dallas to visit her ex-husband, who is the children's father.
Surveillance video from Dallas Love Field Airport shows that her ex-husband picked up the boys from the gate around 9:47 p.m., rifled through their luggage at around 10:17 p.m., and entered the airport restroom at around 10:26 p.m. A few minutes later, he overdosed and died in a restroom stall, just steps away from his sons, federal officials said. At 10:33 p.m., his sons exited the restroom, visibly distraught.
From inside the stall, investigators recovered a Clinique brand makeup container containing more than a gram of fentanyl. Silva Banuelos admitted in plea papers that she packed the fentanyl for her ex-husband’s use.
Text messages between him and Silva Banuelos confirmed that she knew he planned on ingesting the fentanyl and was aware of the risk it posed, federal officials said.
“Hey you need to be careful,” she wrote a few hours before he died, the texts said.
“Yes ma’am. Very slow and easy,” he replied.
“Just one and then wait you’ll see,” she said. “Just one.”
“Ok cool. Thank you. Will do,” he said.
“No passing out on the kitchen floor,” she responded. “Seriously you could od. No dying on the kitchen floor … It’s going to f*** you up!!!"
At her January 2023 detention hearing, the prosecutor said Silva Banuelos “used her minor children to mule drugs.”
“This case is a double tragedy: A pair of young boys lost one parent to drugs, and the other to the criminal justice system,“ Simonton said. “This defendant allowed her two young sons to fly more than 500 miles cross-country with a highly lethal synthetic opioid stashed inside their suitcase, knowing full well how dangerous it was. These boys stood nearby as their father suffered a fatal overdose after ingesting it. The Justice Department will continue to fight until fentanyl is eradicated from our streets.”
“Fentanyl not only destroys individuals, it also destroys families. This tragic reality could not be more evident than when looking at the destruction caused by the actions of Ms. Silva Banuelos that terrible day,” said Special Agent in Charge Eduardo A. Chávez of the DEA Dallas Field Division. “The DEA will never stop working to remove this terrible drug and its even more terrible effects from our communities so tragic events like this can never happen again.”
Fentanyl-related cases have been on the rise in recent years.
In Texas, a new law went into effect on Sept. 1, 2023, that created a criminal offense of murder for manufacturing or distributing fentanyl that results in death. Several cases this year have resulted in murder charges being pursued in fentanyl-related deaths, including four arrests in Parker County and the arrest of a Grapevine woman last month.
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