Aurelio Cano Flores, a Mexican national and one of the highest ranking member of the Gulf Cartel, was found guilty Wednesday by a federal jury of conspiring to import multi-ton quantities of cocaine and marijuana into the United States. Cano Flores, 40, aka “Yankee” and “Yeyo,” was convicted by a federal jury in U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia.
Cano Flores was one of 19 defendants charged in a superseding indictment on Nov. 4, 2010, with conspiracy to manufacture and distribute five kilograms or more of cocaine and 1,000 kilograms or more of marijuana for importation into the United States. Cano Flores was extradited to the United States from Mexico in August 2011 and was ordered detained in federal custody pending trial.
Cano Flores is the highest ranking Gulf Cartel member to be convicted by a U.S. jury in the past 15 years.
Evidence presented at trial included dozens of lawfully intercepted telephone conversations between Cano Flores and other leaders of the Gulf Cartel, as well as testimony from previously convicted Cartel members. According to evidence presented at trial, Cano Flores began working for the Gulf Cartel in approximately 2001 while serving as a police officer in Mexico. While serving as a police officer, Cano Flores recruited others into the Gulf Cartel, collected drug money and escorted large shipments of cartel drugs to the U.S. border.
Cano Flores ultimately rose through the ranks of the Gulf Cartel to become a major transporter of narcotics within Mexico to the U.S. border and became the cartel’s top representative in the important border town of Los Guerra, Tamaulipas, Mexico. As the “plaza boss” for Los Guerra, Cano Flores oversaw the mass distribution of cocaine and marijuana into the United States on a daily basis. Testimony also established that between 2000 and 2010, the Gulf Cartel grew from an organization of only 100 members controlling three border towns to an organization of 25,000 people controlling the drug trade over approximately half of Mexico. As established during the trial, the means and methods of this conspiracy included corruption, murder, kidnapping and intimidation.
Cano Flores was listed as one of USA’s Most Wanted.
At sentencing, scheduled for May 13, 2013, before U.S. District Judge Barbara J. Rothstein, Cano Flores faces a mandatory minimum sentence of only 10 years in prison and a maximum sentence of life in prison.
