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A 21-year-old Pharr man was sentenced to eight years in prison on Tuesday following his conviction for conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute fentanyl, according to a press release from the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Texas.
Alex Dominique Carrillo pleaded guilty on Dec. 20, 2023, after an investigation revealed him to be a drug courier working on behalf of a Mexican drug trafficker.
The investigation began in May 2023 which determined Carrillo was tasked with picking up drugs once they were successfully imported by Mexican smugglers and delivering the drugs to various buyers in the United States.
“The following month, law enforcement seized 500 fentanyl pills in Pharr that Carrillo had transported,” the release said.
On Aug. 3, 2023, Drug Enforcement Administration agents received information that Carrillo was in possession of fentanyl pills and began conducting surveillance of his residence in Pharr, according to a criminal complaint.
The agents observed Carrillo exit his residence, enter a red Chevrolet Avalanche and drive away. He eventually arrived at an office in McAllen where he tossed something out the driver’s side window of his vehicle into a dumpster.
Carillo then parked his truck within the office’s parking lot for a short time then left. He was then stopped by a Texas Department of Public Safety trooper.
As DPS conducted the traffic stop, DEA agents searched the dumpster only to discover two clear vacuum sealed plastic bags containing a large amount of blue pills that would later test positive for fentanyl.
An interview with Carrillo revealed that he had received the pills the night before and was instructed to deliver the pills to another individual who he was in communication with, adding that he was supposed to deliver them earlier that day.
Carrillo stated that he was suspicious he was being set up and tossed the pills in the dumpster.
According to the release, the two vacuum sealed bags contained 3,500 fentanyl pills.
“Just one pill can kill,” U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Texas Alamdar S. Hamdani said in the release. “Mexican drug traffickers have no regard for the countless lives lost at the hands of fentanyl. Today’s sentence puts another fentanyl trafficker behind bars and thousands of lethal fentanyl pills off the streets.”
Carrillo will remain in custody pending transfer to a U.S. Bureau of Prisons facility in the near future.
