A drug dealer who ran his business out of warehouses in the suburbs of Chicago got a harsh sentence from a federal judge in Chicago.
Luis Eduardo Gonzalez-Garcia will spend three times as long in prison as he asked for. Gonzalez-Garcia says that he is a family man.
But federal drug agents said he sent $56 million from cocaine warehouses in Naperville and Arlington Heights back to cartel accounts in Mexico. This money came from a very profitable drug-smuggling business.
Authorities say that the drug kingpin had yachts in tropical places, expensive gold watches, and fancy SUVs, and he was toasting the good life while riding a horse.
That is until the DEA caught Gonzalez-Garcia in 2018 as he was getting on a plane in Guatemala City.
Investigators say that Gonzalez-Garcia had run an extensive cocaine network for the past five years, hiding drugs in shipments of laundry detergent, furniture, and Mexican snacks.
From Mexico to Atlanta, Chicago, and the suburbs, he ran one of the most profitable illegal drug operations in Chicago.
A warehouse in Arlington Heights made $12 million in cash that was sent back to Mexico, and a similar warehouse in the suburb of Naperville made $32 million.
The Special Agent in Charge of the Chicago Field Division, Bob Bell, talked to the I-Team earlier this year about how the cartels are connected to the Chicago area.
“There are direct ties to the drug cartels in Mexico, like the Sinaloa cartel and the new generation cartel in Mexico, and between the cartels and drug distribution in Chicago,” he said.
Gonzalez-Garcia was arrested and taken to the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Chicago. He eventually pleaded guilty and hoped that his good behaviour would get him a shorter sentence.
His lawyers said in papers that he was not only a family man and a businessman, but also a man who felt terrible about what he had done.
He even sent Judge Ronald Guzman pictures of his children and letters from his twin sister and a family priest to show that he was a good family man and not just a drug cartel boss.
Gonzalez-Garcia asked for the least amount of time in prison, which was ten years, but Judge Guzman gave him 30 years in prison and a $1.5 million fine instead.
Gonzalez-Garcia says he started selling cocaine after his tomato business failed and became “clouded in bad judgement,” as he put it in his court filing.
It would ruin the good name of his family, since his mother had been mayor of the Mexican town where they grew up.
At the Chicago MCC, the kingpin, who is 55 years old, is counting down the days until he gets out in his 80s.
Source: ABC News