Three drug traffickers who called themselves the “Suicide Squad” were sentenced to serve time in prison on Monday for their crimes.
Elias Herrera, 31, was sentenced on Monday by U.S. District Judge Randy Crane to serve over seven years in prison for smuggling fentanyl and heroin into the country with two other people, Liz Jomayra Diaz-Colon, 23, and Jonathan Guemez, 30, according to a news release from the Department of Justice.
All are from Nashville, Tennessee.
The three had already pleaded guilty and admitted they conspired with each other to smuggle the drugs into the country in 2021.
The trio worked with Mexican drug cartels to coordinate the drug loads.
Diaz-Colon was arrested first on Aug. 20, 2021, when she tried to cross through a Border Patrol checkpoint with about 10 pounds of heroin hidden in the battery of her Jeep Cherokee.
The next day, Herrera was stopped when he tried to enter the the country with about 10 pounds of fentanyl in his car’s battery.
Guemez was similarly stopped and a little more than eight pounds of heroin was seized from his vehicle.
Special agents with Homeland Security Investigations and U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers pieced together that all were working together. They communicated over WhatsApp and called themselves the ‘Suicide Squad.’
According to the news release, the three admitted they conspired to import about 19 pounds of heroin and a little more than 10 pounds of fentanyl into the country. The federal government estimates the drugs held a street value of about $1.6 million.
Crane, the judge, noted Herrera had an extensive involvement in drug smuggling as a recruiter and organizer, and sentenced him to spend a little more than seven in prison, the news release stated. Guemez had previously received the same sentence while Diaz-Colon was sentenced to serve three years.
