A federal judge in McAllen on Tuesday sentenced a selfie-taking drug trafficker from Rio Grande City to 11-and-one-half years in prison after he was caught last year with approximately 130 pounds of methamphetamine in all four of his truck’s tires.
Abiel Geronimo Fernandez, 20, pleaded guilty on March 22 to a count of importing a controlled substance.
Federal authorities arrested Fernandez on Nov. 28 when he attempted to enter the United States from Mexico at the Rio Grande City port of entry in a Chevrolet Silverado.
However, U.S. Customs and Border Protection referred him for a secondary inspection because the agency’s records flagged him as a potential drug smuggler, according to a complaint.
During the inspection, CBP found anomalies in the truck’s tires and a search of those tires resulted in the discovery of 24 bricks of meth that weighed approximately 130 pounds with an estimated street value of $236,000, according to a news release from the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Texas.
A man named Jose Angel Flores had recruited Fernandez the day before to smuggle nearly seven pounds of meth in exchange for $3,000, according to the complaint.
A search of federal court records did not return any public cases against Flores, who Fernandez met in Miguel Aleman.
At his sentencing, U.S. District Judge Micaela Alvarez heard how Fernandez asked someone to hide marijuana and a firearm while he waited for trial, according to the release.
“The court also saw pictures from his cellphone of narcotics and firearms,” the release stated. “In one, he was taking a selfie while wearing body armor and holding a rifle.”
Other photos show large quantities of narcotics, which the news release said indicated Fernandez’s Nov. 28 smuggling attempt likely was not his first.
In imposing the sentence, Alvarez also noted that Fernandez was arrested for smuggling people in the country illegally a day before his meth smuggling arrest, which the judge described as troubling.
