North Texans Sentenced For Roles In A Drug Trafficking Organization That Mailed Large Quantities Of Marijuana From DFW To St. Croix

FORT WORTH, Texas — Three North Texans, who were convicted for their role in a drug trafficking operation that mailed large quantities of marijuana from the Dallas/Fort Worth (DFW) area to St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands, have been sentenced, announced U.S. Attorney Sarah R. Saldaña of the Northern District of Texas.

This week, April Michelle Greene, 37, of Fort Worth, was sentenced to 78 months in federal prison following her guilty plea in November 2012 to one count of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute a controlled substance.

Earlier this month, Neil Nick Rene, 37, of Duncanville, was sentenced to 151 months in federal prison following his guilty plea in October 2012 to one count of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute a controlled substance and one count of conspiracy to launder monetary instruments. Defendant Carl Gayheart Schou, 48, pleaded guilty in November to the same offenses and is scheduled to be sentenced in October 2013.

Kareem Ambrose, 33, was sentenced on May 1, 2013, to 12 months in federal prison and a $1,000 fine following his guilty plea the previous month to one count of possession of a controlled substance.

According to documents filed in the case, over the course of the conspiracy from December 2009 until March 2012, Greene, Rene and Schou were involved in the sale and shipment of marijuana from the DFW area to buyers located in St Croix, in the U.S. Virgin Islands. In fact, Ambrose was stopped by law enforcement in St. Croix, in a vehicle that contained a package with 2.2 pounds of marijuana that had been mailed to him from North Texas.

Greene, Rene and Schou would mail parcels of marijuana, each weighing approximately two – five kilograms, from multiple post offices in DFW to buyers in St. Croix. Fictitious return addresses were used on the drug parcels to avoid detection. In return for the drug parcels, the buyers would mail the defendants parcels containing proceeds of the sales of the trafficked marijuana, most commonly in the form of U.S. Postal money orders. At times, in order to disguise the source of the proceeds of the marijuana trafficking, Rene and Schou would use false information in the return addresses and would mail the proceeds to third parties. Schou or Greene would then deposit the money orders into their personal bank accounts, or cash them at their member bank, a check cashing facility or a U.S. Postal facility.

This case was investigated by the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, Drug Enforcement Administration, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Internal Revenue Service - Criminal Investigation and the U.S. Virgin Islands Police Department. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Joshua T. Burgess and John de la Garza are prosecuting.