Freddy Geovainni Mero Ancentales, Cocaine Distribution, Florida 2016

Tampa Man Lands 14 Years in Federal Prison for Cocaine Trafficking

Tampa, FL – In a brutal display of organized crime, Freddy Geovainni Mero Ancentales, a 36-year-old Ecuadorian national, has been sentenced to 14 years in federal prison for conspiring with others to distribute five kilograms or more of cocaine on board a vessel subject to the jurisdiction of the United States.

According to court documents, Mero Ancentales was interdicted by the U.S. Coast Guard in the eastern Pacific Ocean in April 2016, along with co-defendants Juan Pablo Anchundia Calderon and Joffre Lizandro Vilela Valencia, both of Ecuador. The trio was caught jettisoning 14 bales of cocaine, weighing approximately 698 kilograms.

Calderon and Vilela Valencia pleaded guilty on July 22, 2016, while Mero Ancentales pleaded guilty on August 31, 2016.

The case was investigated by the Panama Express Strike Force, a standing Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF) comprised of agents and analysts from the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations, the U.S. Coast Guard Investigative Service, the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, and the U.S. Southern Command’s Joint Interagency Task Force South.

The OCDETF program aims to identify, disrupt, and dismantle the most serious drug trafficking and money laundering organizations and those primarily responsible for the nation’s drug supply.

The case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Frank Murray and former Special Assistant United States Attorney James R. Zoll.

Fellow defendants Juan Pablo Anchundia Calderon and Joffre Lizandro Vilela Valencia previously received sentences of 11 years and 3 months and 8 years and 1 month in federal prison, respectively, for committing the same offense.

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