A Texas man has been sentenced to a four-year stint in federal prison for running a lucrative cocaine smuggling operation. Miguel Angel Trejo, a 28-year-old resident of Pharr, was handed down his sentence after admitting to the importation of more than $200,000 worth of the drug, according to a release from the office of U.S. Attorney Alamdar S. Hamdani.
Trejo had entered a guilty plea on February 21, acknowledging his role in the drug trafficking scheme that sought to secretly bring illegal narcotics across the border and into the streets of the United States. His attempt to smoothly pass through the Rio Grande City port of entry last November did not fool authorities, who after a K-9 tipped them off, found 17 bricks of cocaine neatly hidden beneath the floorboards of his vehicle's rear seat. The high-stakes game of cat and mouse ended for Trejo with U.S. District Judge Drew B. Tipton ordering a 50-month sentence to be followed by a three-year term of supervised release.
The contraband seized from Trejo's car was worth an estimated street value of roughly $230,000, signifying not just an individual offense but a cog in a larger wheel of the narcotics machinery. During the sentencing, the judge remarked that the drug trafficking networks could hardly operate without people like Trejo, who are willing to transport these substances across the border, per a statement from the U.S. Attorney's office.
As part of his confession, Trejo accepted he was fully aware he was smuggling drugs and disclosed that this wasn't his first time being involved in such activities. Now, with his future temporarily behind bars, Trejo awaits transfer to a federal prison where he will serve out his sentence. The investigation, which successfully intercepted the narcotics, was spearheaded by Customs and Border Protection along with Homeland Security Investigations. Assistant U.S. Attorney Theodore Parran III was the lead prosecutor on the case, aiming to staunchly combat the flow of illegal drugs into American communities.
