Six Plead Guilty To Sinaloa Cartel Cocaine Submarine Smuggling Plot - US Justice Dept.

WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 14th September, 2021) Six Colombian nationals have entered guilty pleas to charges of conspiring to use "narco-submarines" to smuggle over 19,000 kilograms, or nearly 42,000 Pounds of cocaine to the Sinaloa Cartel in northern Mexico, the US Justice Department announced on Monday.

"According to the plea agreements ... the defendants were part of a transnational criminal organization that dispatched self-propelled semi-submersible (SPSS) vessels, sometimes known as narco-submarines, from Colombia into the Pacific Ocean, destined for Sinaloa Cartel members in Oaxaca, Mexico," the Justice Department said in a press release,

Fernando Pineda-Jimenez, 40, Luis Ernesto Perez-Quevedo, 45, Adrian Luna-Munoz, 45, Yesid Eduardo Torres-Solis, 41, Hector Ruiz-Angulo,� 54, each pleaded guilty to one count conspiracy to import five kilograms or more of cocaine into the United States, the release said.

All five now face a minimum mandatory of ten years in Federal prison and a maximum term of life imprisonment, the release said.� A sixth defendant, Rodrigo Pineda-Torres, 53, also pleaded guilty to the same charges and was sentenced to 11 years and three months in federal prison, the release added.

The first narco-sub carried approximately 6,900 kilograms of cocaine in July 2015, the second in August 2015 carried 6,845 kilograms of cocaine and the third in March 2016 contained 5,824 kilograms of cocaine. US authorities intercepted all three shipments, according to the Justice Department.