| Advertisement |
CHICAGO, Nov. 12 (UPI) -- A confessed conspirator of drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman could be imprisoned for 25 years, according to a sentencing recommendation by a U.S. attorney. Tomas Arevalo Renteria pleaded guilty in March 2014 to one count of possession of cocaine and heroin with intent to distribute. He also admitted responsibility to more than 150 kilograms of cocaine and 30 kilograms of heroin distributed in the United States, particularly in Chicago.
Advertisement
"Between approximately May 2005 and September 2009, defendant Tomas Arevalo Renteria was a member or associate of the Sinaloa Cartel and specifically a member of a conspiracy to import into the United States and distribute massive quantities of cocaine and heroin," Zachary T. Fardon, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois writes in a U.S. government sentencing memorandum.
Arevalo Renteria's arrest stemmed partly from the set up of two drug deliveries to the Chicago area. Arevalo Renteria faces between 10 years and life imprisonment and previously said he would not cooperate with U.S. authorities against his former boss.
"In this case, a sentence of 25 years' imprisonment ... is sufficient," Fardon writes in the sentencing recommendation to Chief Judge Ruben Castillo filed Wednesday. "Most significantly, a sentence within the advisory range is necessary to reflect the seriousness of the offense. This case is about drug trafficking at the highest levels at which it exists in the world."
One of the two drug set ups occurred in November 2008 when Arevalo Renteria was talking on the phone with twin brothers Pedro Flores and Margarito Flores to set up a 12-kilogram cocaine deal in Chicago's west suburb of Cicero. The Flores brothers had become one of the largest drug distributors in the city, effectively earning the trust of Guzman's Sinaloa Cartel.
What Arevalo Renteria did not know was that the brothers had become informants for the U.S. government.
"Hey dude, so how many are there?" Pedro Flores asked after Arevalo-Renteria gave them the phone number of a drug courier who was going to deliver the cocaine.
"There's 12," Arevalo-Renteria replied.
"At the same price, right, dude?" Flores said. "Hopefully they're good."
As the courier made the drug delivery on Nov. 14, 2008, federal authorities seized the cocaine and the courier in an investigation resulting in the indictment of Guzman, Arevalo Renteria and nearly a dozen of his Sinaloa Cartel henchmen.
"El Chapo" -- meaning "The Short One" or "shorty" -- so dubbed because of his 5-foot-6-inch frame, was captured in Guatemala in 1993 and then extradited to Mexico to face murder and drug trafficking charges. He escaped from prison in 2001 by hiding in a laundry cart after bribing prison guards, and was re-captured in February 2014.
On July 11, Guzman escaped from a Mexican maximum security prison for the second time using a mile-long tunnel, which could have taken a year to build. In October, an unedited leaked video of Guzman's escape shed further light into the suspicious circumstances surrounding the prison break.
Mexican television channel Televisa broadcasted the CCTV footage of Guzman's escape, the longer version of a video authorities previously released but without sound and only showing the moments before Guzman disappeared.
Tomas Arevalo Renteria, 'El Chapo' co-defendant, sentencing recommendation
