A Mexican citizen named Alfredo Gonzalez-Diaz has been sentenced to greater than 14 years in federal jail this week for his involvement in making plans to send a rocket launcher and different guns to Mexico, in addition to trafficking medicine within the United States. This information was once launched by means of the Justice Department.
In 2020, Gonzalez-Diaz pleaded in charge to conspiracy to distribute heroin and cocaine, in addition to unlawful ownership of a firearm. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Texas showed this.
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Gonzalez-Diaz was once charged after federal brokers performed a raid on a development and came upon more than a few unlawful pieces, together with 8 and a part kilograms of heroin, two kilograms of cocaine, a rocket launcher, a rocket propelled grenade launcher, more than one different weapons, and over $111,000 in money. Prosecutors described the money as “drug proceeds” in a press unencumber. It was once published that a minimum of one of the guns was once hidden within a stereo speaker and was once being ready for shipping to Mexico.
According to Alamdar Hamdani, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Texas, “These are the tools of terror of the Mexican cartels. This U.S. Attorney’s Office will not rest until we seize the cartel’s weapons, drugs, and cash, and welcome those, like Gonzalez-Diaz, to the inside of a prison cell.”
The U.S. Attorney’s Office showed that Gonzalez-Diaz was once connected to the Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generacion. The raid was once phase of an undercover investigation that aimed to infiltrate the cartel.
The Justice Department has categorized the Jalisco cartel as one of the “five most dangerous transnational criminal organizations in the world.” They are basically accountable for trafficking cocaine, methamphetamine, and fentanyl-laced heroin into the United States. Additionally, the crowd is recently engaged in a turf battle within the central Mexican state of Guanajuato.
It was once published in a press unencumber that Gonzalez-Diaz was once residing in Houston illegally. Following his jail sentence, he’s anticipated to be deported.
On the similar day, federal government additionally introduced the sentencing of Atanacio Espinoza Duarte, a 74-year-old resident of San Antonio. Espinoza-Duarte was once sentenced to 2 years in jail for making an attempt to carry 5 AK-47 rifles into Mexico. The weapons and corresponding ammunition have been came upon in an ice chest when Espinoza-Duarte was once stopped on the Laredo border crossing in June 2021.
Espinoza Duarte, who was once additionally given 3 years of probation, admitted to buying the firearms from a person in Mesquite.
According to a 2021 report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office, the Mexican govt estimates that as much as 200,000 firearms are smuggled into the rustic every 12 months. The record states that those weapons are contributing to the violence by means of facilitating the illicit drug business.
In 2021, the Mexican govt filed a lawsuit towards U.S. gun producers, claiming that their industry practices have contributed to the violence within the nation. The govt estimates that 70 % of the guns trafficked to Mexico originate from the U.S. Furthermore, it was once reported that during 2019, a minimum of 17,000 homicides have been connected to trafficked guns.