LEXINGTON, Ky. (Oct. 17, 2025) — Federal prosecutors have charged Renato Benites Echegaray of Lexington with conspiring to distribute more than a pound of cocaine after agents seized drugs and cash from multiple homes linked to him, according to a newly filed criminal complaint.
A sworn affidavit from DEA Task Force Officer Zachary Travis says investigators had been tracking Echegaray since at least July 2024 as part of a long-running probe into large-scale cocaine trafficking in central Kentucky. Over months of surveillance, agents identified three Lexington properties tied to him — his main residence on Red Clover Lane, a second home on Pleasant Ridge Drive, and a stash house on Aspen Street.
The case centers on a January 29 encounter in the parking lot of Malone’s restaurant in the Hamburg area. Investigators watched Echegaray, driving a 2015 Chevrolet Suburban, meet with the driver of a white GMC pickup. Minutes later, Kentucky State Police pulled over the truck and a drug-sniffing dog alerted to narcotics. Troopers found 1,017 grams of cocaine — roughly one kilogram — hidden inside, the affidavit says.
The driver, after being read his rights, allegedly told officers he got the cocaine from the man in the Suburban. Agents had already attached a court-approved tracker to that vehicle, which they say Echegaray used regularly.
Nearly nine months later, on Oct. 14, Lexington police narcotics officers executed state search warrants at both the Aspen Street stash house and the Pleasant Ridge residence. The Aspen search turned up about 1¼ kilograms of suspected cocaine, which field tests indicated contained the drug, according to the report. An occupant told police they stored and distributed the cocaine for Echegaray.
Officers searching the Pleasant Ridge home found about $20,000 in cash, believed to be drug proceeds, the affidavit states. Echegaray was arrested the same day on state trafficking charges before being transferred to federal custody.
Federal prosecutors say the seizures show Echegaray conspired to distribute at least 500 grams of cocaine between January and October 2025 — an amount far above personal-use quantities. If convicted under 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1) and 846, he faces a mandatory minimum of five years in prison and up to 40 years.
The case was filed Oct. 15 in U.S. District Court in Lexington, before Magistrate Judge Matthew A. Stinnett. Assistant U.S. Attorney G. Todd Bradbury is prosecuting.
Echegaray has not yet entered a plea, and no attorney was listed for him in the initial filing.
