Lewistone Baez Miranda, Cocaine Trafficking, New Hampshire 2023

A Puerto Rico man has been sentenced to 78 months in federal prison for cocaine trafficking in New Hampshire, the Grimy Times has learned.

Lewistone Baez Miranda, 50, was sentenced to 78 months in federal prison and 3 years of supervised release. He pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to distribute cocaine in January of this year.

According to court documents, Baez Miranda was the leader of a drug trafficking organization that shipped cocaine from Puerto Rico to Manchester, New Hampshire. His son, based in Puerto Rico, used fictitious information to send packages of cocaine through the United States Postal Service to Manchester at the direction of the defendant.

The cocaine was often packaged in 500-gram or 1,000-gram bundles and hidden inside children’s games. Baez Miranda employed co-conspirators to retrieve the packages of cocaine for him in Manchester. He also sent suspected drug proceeds to his son in Puerto Rico, in one instance sending him a parcel containing $11,000.

Between September 2020 and December 2021, the defendant’s drug trafficking organization shipped over 5.6 kilograms of cocaine from Puerto Rico to Manchester for redistribution.

Acting U.S. Attorney Jay Mccormack said, “The defendant will spend the next six years in federal prison because he chose to use the United States Postal Service to facilitate his drug trafficking enterprise by shipping multiple kilograms of cocaine from Puerto Rico to New Hampshire.”

Ketty Larco-Ward, Inspector in Charge of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, Boston Division, added, “Illegal narcotics have no place in our neighborhoods or in the U.S. Mail. Mr. Miranda’s actions endangered not only communities in New Hampshire, but he also endangered the U.S. Postal Service employees who move and deliver the mail every day.”

The United States Postal Inspection Service led the investigation, with valuable assistance provided by the Manchester Police Department. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Aaron Gingrande and Cesar Vega are prosecuting the case.

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