Leonel Chavez Vargas Gets 70 Months for Cocaine, Gun Crimes

Leonel Chavez Vargas, 29, an illegal alien from Mexico living in Neeville, Texas, is headed to federal prison for 70 months after being convicted on drug and firearm charges in Mississippi. The sentence, handed down by U.S. District Judge Sul Ozerden, includes four years of supervised release and a $5,000 fine. Vargas was convicted of possession with intent to distribute over 500 grams of cocaine and unlawful possession of a firearm by an illegal alien.

The case began June 5, 2017, when a Harrison County Sheriff’s Deputy pulled over a vehicle Vargas was driving for a routine traffic violation. What started as a simple stop turned into a major drug bust when Vargas consented to a vehicle search. Officers discovered a tampered interior panel hiding 4,212 grams of cocaine—nearly ten pounds of the deadly powder. Vargas admitted he was to be paid $5,000 for transporting the narcotics across state lines.

Vargas pled guilty November 21, 2017, in the Southern District of Mississippi to possession with intent to distribute 500 grams or more of cocaine hydrochloride in Harrison County, Mississippi, and to being an illegal alien in possession of a firearm in the Southern District of Texas. The dual jurisdiction stemmed from a sprawling investigation that exposed Vargas’s long-running criminal activity stretching from Texas to the Gulf Coast.

The firearm charge traces back to August 30, 2011, when ATF agents in Houston raided Vargas’s apartment as part of a narcotics investigation. After gaining consent to search the premises, agents uncovered drugs, cash, and weapons stashed throughout the unit. Most damning: a Taurus .40 caliber pistol found under the mattress in Vargas’s bedroom. He admitted he was unlawfully present in the United States and had no legal right to possess the weapon.

Federal prosecutors from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Mississippi stepped in to handle the firearm charge on behalf of Texas authorities, consolidating the cases for prosecution. Assistant U.S. Attorney Kathlyn R. Van Buskirk led the case, weaving together the 2011 gun discovery with the 2017 cocaine bust to paint Vargas as a repeat offender embedded in cross-border criminal networks.

The investigation was a joint effort by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), and the Harrison County Sheriff’s Department. U.S. Attorney Mike Hurst and DEA Special Agent in Charge Stephen G. Azzam commended the agencies for dismantling a key link in a drug pipeline feeding the Gulf Coast. Vargas now begins his 70-month sentence, a warning to others smuggling poison and guns across the shadows of state lines.