Photo: Robert Michael/AFP/Getty Images
For: EFE Posted Jan 27, 2023, 9:41 am EST
Two Puerto Rican drug traffickers were sentenced to life imprisonment and 50 years in prison, respectively, for their role as leaders of “a brutal drug cartel responsible for dozens of murders” and the trade and distribution of tons of cocaine.
The Southern District Court of New York sentenced Julio Márquez Alejandro, aka the “Chino”in perpetuity, while Louis Blondet He was sentenced to fifty years, after a jury found them guilty of murder, drug trafficking and bribing the Puerto Rico police in April 2022, according to a statement from the Ministry of Justice.
The 52-year-old “Chino” created a gang he called “the UN” (sic), an acronym for the United Drug Trafficking Organization, and had Blondet, 48, as one of his trusted men.
Together, organized the distribution of thousands of kilos of cocaine in Puerto Rico and New Yorka city to which a shipment arrived that was even distributed in the vicinity of a nursery in the Bronx.
The judge considered it proven that Márquez Alejandro “personally ordered, authorized or contributed to facilitating the murder of at least fifteen people to maintain and expand their power and profits”, while Blondet participated in or was complicit in seven murders.
His victims include a young woman who rejected Blondet’s sexual advances and ended up shot in the head and thrown on a street corner, or a disabled person who was attacked in his wheelchair by Márquez with 24 bullets to make him pay for his supposed collaboration with the police.
In addition to jail Márquez was sentenced to pay a fine of 11.52 million dollarswhile Blondet will have to pay another $252,000.
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