BROWNSVILLE, Texas – A federal jury in Texas convicted a manager in Mexico's Gulf drug cartel on Friday of conspiring to possess and import cocaine and marijuana.
Juan Roberto Rincon-Rincon had risen from the cartel boss' right-hand man to plaza boss, controlling a lucrative stretch of smuggling routes across the Rio Grande from Texas.
Jurors deliberated for more than two hours after prosecutors closed their case by highlighting incriminating statements Rincon-Rincon made shortly after he was captured last October.
"I am a commander of the Gulf cartel," Assistant U.S. Attorney Jody Young told jurors in Spanish at the start of his closing argument, saying the comment reflected the response that Rincon-Rincon eventually gave agents when they asked who he was.
Rincon-Rincon went on to explain how much of a cut he got from each kilogram of marijuana that crossed the border from his territory and said he had one smuggler working for him who moved 500 kilograms per week into the U.S.
When you're a cartel member controlling your territory, you're fighting for the market and "for control of the border," Young said.
Rincon-Rincon and three other men were captured by Border Patrol last October near the river. He told authorities he was fleeing cartel infighting.
Prosecutors alleged that in his time as plaza boss, he oversaw the smuggling of 1,100 pounds of marijuana per week into Texas and collected taxes from those moving additional loads.
His attorney, Richard Zayas, emphasized to jurors that the government had not presented any evidence definitely linking Rincon-Rincon to loads of drugs that entered the U.S.
Cooperating witnesses testified they saw Rincon-Rincon in Mexico with drug loads and money received from drug smuggling, but the only connection made to him and loads captured in Texas by Border Patrol was the location where they were seized. They were found across the Rio Grande from territory he allegedly controlled for a short period in 2011.
Zayas tried to get Rincon-Rincon's statements to agents suppressed before trial. He argued that his client hadn't slept in several days, was fleeing for his life from cartel rivals and was told he would only be prosecuted for illegal entry.
On Friday, the attorney argued that Rincon-Rincon took a cut of drugs that other people moved through his territory, but was not responsible for importing them.
"The Gulf cartel is not just about drugs. The Gulf cartel is about extorting people," Zayas said. "Anything that is transported through their area, they want you to pay the piso (toll)."
Prosecutors said they did not need to show that Rincon-Rincon brought the drugs into the U.S. himself because the charges were for conspiring to make that happen.
