MOBILE, Alabama – A man was sentenced to 30 months in federal prison in Mobile after pleading guilty to a role in a scheme to smuggle military-grade weapons out of the city and into the hands of a Mexican drug cartel.
The sentencing took place in federal court in Mobile before the district’s chief judge. The defendant, a native of Mexico, pleaded guilty earlier in the year to conspiracy to export merchandise from the United States. Following his release from federal custody, he is expected to be turned over to immigration authorities for consideration of deportation.
He was one of five men originally arrested in connection with the smuggling plot, and his case was the last of the group to be resolved. The other four defendants had already been sentenced in prior years, with punishments ranging from probation and time served to prison terms as long as roughly four years.
According to court records, the case originated from a 2010 investigation after one of the men involved discussed purchasing military weapons with an undercover Homeland Security investigator. The group ultimately arranged to buy a substantial cache of weaponry, including dozens of assault rifles, multiple grenade launchers, grenade projectiles and handguns, with the stated intent of delivering the arms to a Mexican cartel operating across the border.
Court records show one of the men traveled to Mobile in the fall of 2010 to meet with the undercover investigator, inspect the weapons and make a down payment toward the roughly $86,500 purchase price. Two other members of the group later traveled to Texas to complete the transaction with investigators posing as arms sellers.
The prosecution reflects the kind of cross-border smuggling cases federal authorities in Mobile have pursued in recent years, as the port city’s role as a shipping and logistics hub has occasionally made it a target for those seeking to move contraband, weapons or other illicit goods domestically and internationally.
Federal prosecutors and Homeland Security investigators worked the case for several years before securing guilty pleas from all five defendants, underscoring the extended timelines often involved in building conspiracy cases that span multiple states and, in this instance, an international cartel connection.
With this final sentencing, the years-long prosecution effectively concluded, closing out a case that began with an undercover sting nearly half a decade earlier.