A Fort Lauderdale federal judge sentenced a MS-13 gang member to 17 years in prison for running a fentanyl drug-trafficking operation while locked up in a Florida prison.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office says 32-year-old Mario Clifford Rivera, who goes by the nickname “Chuky,” was organizing shipments of illegal drugs from Mexico to California, and then using the U.S. Postal Service to smuggle them to Florida.
Rivera, who was sentenced Wednesday, began shipping the drugs while free on bond in the months prior to beginning a three-year state prison sentence beginning in April 2023. He is serving time for possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, throwing a deadly object into an occupied vehicle and aggravated assault, according to federal prosecutors.
Worked from Doral prison
Rivera continued his operation while in the South Florida Reception Center prison in Doral, according to his criminal complaint…