A Texas trucking company owner was sentenced to decades in prison for his role in coordinating a Mexico-to-Chicago drug pipeline.
On September 23, Jose Farias, 44, was sentenced to 25 years in prison, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Illinois.
In 2021, a federal jury in Chicago convicted Farias on charges of drug conspiracy and possession.
Farias owned a McAllen, Texas, headquartered trucking company and resided in Mexico. Officials say that he was a part of an organized operation that distributed approximately 130 kilograms of heroin and approximately 45 kilograms of cocaine in the Chicago area.
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, “in 2015 and 2016, Farias arranged with truck drivers to transport dozens of kilograms of narcotics to the Chicago area hidden in the hollowed-out wheel axles of tractor-trailers.”
Farias also supervised as the drugs were unloaded from the trucks by “traffickers” who then put the proceeds from the drug transactions back in the trucks for transport back to Texas and Mexico.
“Farias’s drug trafficking organization used warehouses in Naperville, Illinois and Sugar Grove, Illinois, as well as an abandoned auto lot in the West Garfield Park neighborhood of Chicago and an auto repair shop in Channahon, Illinois During the investigation, law enforcement searched these locations and seized approximately 54 kilograms of heroin and nearly 17 kilograms of cocaine, as well as $630,200 in illicit cash proceeds,” officials said.
Seven other people have been convicted in state and federal courts as part of this investigation.
“The drugs defendant caused to be distributed were resold to thousands of people, fueling addiction, tearing families apart, and decimating communities — all for the profit of defendant and his co-conspirators,” Assistant U.S. Attorneys Richard M. Rothblatt and Kristen Totten argued in the government’s sentencing memorandum.