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A trio from Nashville pleaded guilty to smuggling millions of dollars worth of fentanyl and heroin into Texas and then on to several U.S. cities for a Mexican drug cartel. The group moved multiple drug loads from the border region to their final destination in Tennessee before being arrested by authorities last year.
This week, two U.S. citizens, 23-year-old Liz Jomayra Diaz-Colon and 30-year-old Elias Herrera appeared before a U.S. District Court Judge in McAllen, Texas, where they pleaded guilty to drug trafficking conspiracy charges. Another member of the group, 30-year-old Jonathan Guemez, pleaded guilty to a similar charge in December.
The drug loads seized by investigators are valued at more than $1.6 million, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Texas revealed. It remains unclear how many drug loads the group was able to move before they were arrested. Court documents do not name the drug cartel the smugglers worked for.
According to a criminal complaint filed in federal court, the case began on August 20, 2021, when Diaz-Colon arrived at the Hidalgo-Reynosa International Bridge in a Jeep Cherokee with Tennessee license plates. The woman told officers she traveled to Reynosa to visit a relative. While attempting to cross into the United States, police dogs alerted U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers to the possible presence of drugs inside the vehicle. With the help of an x-ray scanner, officers were able to locate and seize approximately ten pounds of heroin hidden in a compartment near the vehicle’s battery.
Two days later, Herrera attempted to cross into Texas through the Pharr-Reynosa International Bridge in a similar vehicle with Tennessee registration. CBP officers conducted a secondary inspection and found more than ten pounds of Fentanyl in the vehicle’s battery. Guemez was also caught attempting to smuggle eight pounds of heroin hidden in a vehicle into the U.S. The group would communicate with each other through WhatsApp and would refer to themselves as the “Suicide Squad.”
Court records indicate this was not the first time they had imported controlled substances into the United States. These drugs were shipped from Mexico into the states and eventually distributed to Northern states. Once there, each would get paid for the delivery. Diaz-Colon admitted to officers being paid around $20,000 in total for her participation in the scheme. Herrera had been paid $7,000 for his successful trips.
All three were arrested in Aug 2021 and remain in federal custody pending their sentencing hearings.
Luisana Moreno is a contributing writer for Breitbart Texas.
