Arizona Resident Sentenced For Drug Trafficking Conspiracy

CONCORD, NEW HAMPSHIRE – Alvaro Rivera-Pedrego of Douglas, Arizona and Agua Pietra, Mexico was sentenced in United States District Court for the District of New Hampshire to 60 months in federal prison after pleading guilty to conspiracy to distribute cocaine, announced United States Attorney John P. Kacavas.

            The United States alleged that Rivera-Pedrego conspired with members of the Sinaloa Cartel, led by Joaquin Guzman-Loera, a/k/a “Chapo”, to establish a cocaine distribution route that would ship cocaine to European ports to be distributed in Europe, the United States, Canada and other countries.  In 2009, the defendant met with a confidential human source in Mexico to discuss the creation of the distribution network.  Over a period of months in 2009 and 2010, the defendant facilitated meetings between his coconspirators and the confidential human source.    Those meetings led to meetings between the defendant’s coconspirators and undercover agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation that began in early 2010 and continued through August 2012, including meetings in Miami in August 2010 and November 2010, in Madrid, Spain, in March 2011, in Portsmouth and New Castle, New Hampshire in April 2011, and in Boston in August 2011.  The coconspirators offered to deliver thousands of kilograms of cocaine secreted in cargo containers that would be shipped to various ports on the eastern seaboard of the United States and to ports in Europe.  The conspirators ultimately delivered 346 kilograms of cocaine to the FBI at a port in Algeciras, Spain on July 27, 2012 hidden in a cargo container in boxes that purportedly held glassware.

            The cartel’s leader, by Joaquin Guzman-Loera, a/k/a “Chapo”, was arrested by Mexican authorities in February 2014.  The District of New Hampshire, several other districts and the Department of Justice are working to have him extradited to the United States.

            The case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and prosecuted by First Assistant United States Attorney Don Feith.