VENTURA (CBS/AP) — An accused drug trafficker known as Mexico’s “King of Heroin” has pleaded guilty to conspiring to sell narcotics in several Southland cities.

Prosecutor David Russell says Jose Antonio Medina Arreguin, also known as Don Pepe, entered the plea Wednesday in Ventura County Superior Court.

He faces up to 24 years in prison when he’s sentenced April 13.

When he was arrested last year, Ventura prosecutors said the 36-year-old from Apatzingan, Michoacan, Mexico, was the leader of an elaborate, multimillion-dollar smuggling operation that once moved an estimated 440 pounds of heroin a month into Oxnard, Downey, Los Angeles, Long Beach and San Jose.

The news media in Mexico dubbed him King of Heroin.

Drug money was illegally transported to Mexico and investigators say Arreguin got up to $260,000 a week.

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