A Mexican national who pleaded guilty to trafficking 500,000 fatal doses of fentanyl has been sentenced to about six years in prison.
A statement from U.S. Attorney Mike Hurst says 53-year-old Pablo Vega-Ontanon was sentenced Monday to 74 months in prison for possession with intent to distribute heroin. He was also sentenced to five years of supervised release.
The statement says Vega-Ontanon was living in Georgia without proper documentation. It says Vega-Ontanon, Eder Ortega-Cassarubias and Eric Estudillo-Carrazco traveled to Mississippi to sell heroin to a confidential informant and were found with nine kilograms of heroin and one kilogram of fentanyl, which can produce 500,000 fatal doses.
Co-defendants Ortega-Cassarubias and Estudillo-Carrazco both pleaded guilty. Ortega-Cassarubias was sentenced to 127 months in prison and Estudillo-Carrazco will be sentenced in November.
