Texas Man Sentenced to Almost 12 Years for Federal Drug Trafficking Conviction in New Mexico

ALBUQUERQUE – Antonio Ulises Mireles, 24, of El Paso, Texas, was sentenced today in federal court in Las Cruces, N.M., to 142 months of imprisonment for his conviction on a methamphetamine trafficking charge.  Mireles will be on supervised release for five years after completing his prison sentence.  Mireles also was ordered to pay a $7,000 money judgment and $500 in community restitution.

Mireles was arrested on Aug. 11, 2017, on a criminal complaint charging him with drug trafficking offenses in Dona Ana County, N.M.  According to court documents, Mireles distributed quantities of drugs to an undercover law enforcement agent on the following dates:

    Approximately 572 grams of methamphetamine on June 9, 2017;

    Approximately 856 grams of methamphetamine and 493 grams of heroin on July 13, 2017;

    Approximately 458 grams of methamphetamine on July 28, 2017; and

    Approximately 1,209 grams of methamphetamine on Aug. 11, 2017.

On Nov. 8, 2017, Mireles pled guilty to a felony information charging him with conspiracy and distribution of methamphetamine.  In entering the guilty plea, Mireles admitted that from June 2017 through Aug. 2017, he conspired with others to distribute methamphetamine.  Mireles further admitted that during that time, he was responsible for distributing approximately 3.3 kilograms of methamphetamine in Dona Ana County.

This case was investigated by the Las Cruces office of the FBI and the HIDTA Regional Interagency Drug Task Force/Metro Narcotics Task Force and was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Brock E. Taylor.

The HIDTA Regional Interagency Drug Task Force/Metro Narcotics Task Force is comprised of officers from the Las Cruces Police Department, the Doña Ana County Sheriff’s Office, the FBI, HSI and the New Mexico State Police.  The High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas (HIDTA) program was created by Congress with the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988.  HIDTA is a program of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) which provides assistance to federal, state, local and tribal law enforcement agencies operating in areas determined to be critical drug-trafficking regions of the United States and seeks to reduce drug trafficking and production by facilitating coordinated law enforcement activities and information sharing.