Jose Luis Pacheco-Montes, 34, of Puerto Rico, is headed to federal prison for 46 months after attempting to hijack a mid-sea cocaine deal near St. Croix. The sentence, handed down January 31, 2017, by District Court Senior Judge Raymond L. Finch, slams the door on a brazen scheme to ferry 87 kilograms of high-grade cocaine from open waters to the U.S. Virgin Islands and onward to Puerto Rico.
Pacheco-Montes pleaded guilty on August 17, 2016, to one count of attempted possession of cocaine with intent to distribute. Between November 9 and November 12, 2015, he and a crew of accomplices made three separate boat runs from St. Croix into international waters, aiming to intercept a floating stash of narcotics. Their plan: grab the drugs at sea, smuggle them back to St. Croix, and reroute the load to Puerto Rico for distribution.
The operation unraveled on November 13, 2015, when co-conspirators finally completed the underwater retrieval—only to be ambushed by law enforcement at Knight’s Bay on St. Croix. Agents seized the full 87-kilogram package, a haul worth millions on the street. That bust laid bare the entire network, pulling Pacheco-Montes into federal custody and sealing his fate.
Judge Finch didn’t stop at prison time. He slapped Pacheco-Montes with three years of supervised release and a mandatory $100 special assessment. The sentence reflects the federal crackdown on maritime drug corridors in the Caribbean, where traffickers exploit island geography and sea lanes to move bulk narcotics.
The investigation was led by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, which has intensified surveillance across the Eastern Caribbean. The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Alphonso Andrews, Jr., who emphasized that even failed drug attempts carry severe consequences under federal law.
Pacheco-Montes now joins the ranks of traffickers caught in the U.S. justice system’s net—one that stretches from remote ocean drop zones to courtroom dockets in the Virgin Islands. His 46-month sentence is a warning: in the cocaine trade, getting caught halfway through the crime is just as costly as crossing the finish line.
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Key Facts
- State: Virgin Islands
- Agency: DOJ USAO
- Category: Drug Trafficking
- Source: Official Source ↗
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