International Drug Smuggler Working From Queens Gets Prison Time

QUEENS, NY -- A Mexican man will spend the next 20 years behind bars for smuggling drugs into the United States and using a Queens-based jewelry store as a front for the millions of dollars he made selling them.

Salvador Jimenez Uribe, 52, was sentenced in a Brooklyn federal courthouse on Friday for his part in an international drug smuggling operation, in which he delivered hundreds of kilograms of cocaine, marijuana and heroin to dealers in the New York area and laundered millions of dollars from the sales, said United States Attorney Richard Donoghue.

"The defendant trafficked kilograms of cocaine and heroin from South America and Mexico for distribution in the United States, flooding our streets with dangerous drugs," Donoghue said.

According to court records, Uribe smuggled the drugs across the U.S. - Mexico border hidden in tractor-trailer trucks operated by members of Mexican drug cartels. The Guadalajara, Mexico resident then delivered them to other drug traffickers in the New York area, laundering his profits from the sales through a Queens-based jewelry store.

Uribe also organized large shipments of cocaine from Ecuador to the United States, hiding the drugs in flaps of cardboard boxes containing bananas, according to court records.

In August 2016, Uribe pleaded guilty to charges including international cocaine importation, narcotics distribution and money laundering conspiracies.

Lead image via Shutterstock.