Ivan Romero, Cigarette Warehouse Burglary, Kentucky 2011
A massive cigarette heist in Leitchfield, Kentucky, has led to a guilty plea from a Miami resident.
Ivan Romero, 42, a/k/a El Negro, admitted to participating in a conspiracy to burglarize a Kentucky cigarette warehouse in March 2011.
The Coremark Cigarette Warehouse was the target of the theft, with Romero and his co-conspirators stealing over $1.5 million in cigarettes.
The group gained entry into the warehouse by climbing through the roof, disabling the alarm system, and loading the stolen goods into a stolen tractor trailer.
Romero and his co-conspirators were able to unload the stolen tractor trailer and load it with cigarettes, before providing transportation to the New Jersey/New York area.
Romero is a legal permanent resident from Cuba who last resided in Miami and has been serving a state sentence in Florida before being transferred to federal custody.
If convicted at trial, Romero could have been sentenced to no more than 15 years in prison for both charges, fined $500,000 and been required to serve three years of supervised release.
Romero is scheduled for sentencing before Chief Judge Joseph H. McKinley, Jr., on April 19, 2016, in Owensboro, Kentucky.
The case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Joshua Judd and the investigation is being led by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) with assistance from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Leitchfield and Elizabethtown Police Departments, and New Jersey and Kentucky State Police Departments.
Key Facts
- State: Kentucky
- Category: Violent Crime
- Source: DOJ Press Release â†â€â€
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