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Constantino Acosta-Banda, a citizen of Mexico who last resided in California, was sentenced on Tuesday, Nov. 2, to 70 months in prison, according to Leonard Boyle, acting United States attorney for the District of Connecticut.
The Drug Enforcement Administration’s Bridgeport High-Intensity Drug Trafficking Area Task Force began investigating an organization distributing fentanyl, crack cocaine and heroin in the Bridgeport area in 2019, Boyle said.
Investigators learned that the organization had a connection to Mexican cartel traffickers, and members of the organization were receiving a supply of drugs from the West Coast of the US, Boyle said.
On Feb. 10, 2020, Acosta-Banda and three other individuals were arrested after arriving at a parking lot in San Diego to conduct a drug transaction, and investigators seized about 4.9 kilograms of heroin from them, the US Attorney's Office reported.
Boyle said a related search also revealed about six kilograms of cocaine in a storage locker in San Diego.
Acosta-Banda pleaded guilty on March 4 to conspiracy to distribute and to possess with intent to distribute heroin and fentanyl, the US Attorney's Office said.
Boyle said Acosta-Band will face immigration proceedings when he completes his prison term.
The US Attorney's Office said Acosta-Band was involved in a hit-and-run crash that seriously injured a 6-year-old boy in 2017.
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