A Cranston man was sentenced to two years in federal prison on Thursday for helping to ship cocaine from Puerto Rico to Rhode Island, according to authorities.
Hector G. Rios pleaded guilty to conspiracy to possess with the intent to distribute cocaine on May 9, 2023, according to a news release from U.S. Attorney Zachary A. Cunha.
Rios admitted that he accepted multiple packages containing kilos of cocaine from Puerto Rico and delivered them to leaders of a drug trafficking organization, prosecutors said.
Between December 2019 and July 2020, Rios received at least five kilos of cocaine through the U.S. Postal Service, prosecutors said. He was one of several people involved in the operation, which shipped more than sixty parcels containing one or more kilos of cocaine from different post offices in Puerto Rico to addresses in Woonsocket, Rhode Island, the news release said.
The U.S. Postal Inspection Service and the Rhode Island High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area Task Force investigated the case. It was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Christine D. Lowell, Denise M. Barton, and Stacey A. Erickson.
Rios will also be under federal supervised release for three years after he serves his prison sentence, prosecutors said.
Generative artificial intelligence (AI) assisted a What’sUpNewp journalist with the reporting included in this story.
