FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. (WNCN) – A criminal who had the actual name of a Mexican drug cartel saved as the cartel contact in his cellphone was sentenced last week after planning to bring 22 pounds of cocaine into Fayetteville a year ago, officials said.
Ricardo Baltazar-Aguirre, 52, of South Carolina conspired with another man to drive 10 kilos of cocaine up Interstate 95 and deliver it to a drug dealer in Fayetteville in January 2023, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Eastern District of North Carolina.
Baltazar-Aguirre was sentenced Thursday to 12.5 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to conspiring to distribute and possessing with the intent to distribute five kilograms or more of cocaine, said Michael Easley, the U.S. Attorney for the district.
The plan involved Baltazar-Aguirre in a pickup truck following behind his now-convicted co-conspirator Oscar Nunez-Cortes, 26, who would drive an SUV, the news release said.
On Jan. 6, 2023, Nunez-Cortes, also of South Carolina, drove to meet Baltazar-Aguirre at a house in Elloree, South Carolina, Easley said.