Mennonite sentenced in cartel drug smuggling case
Source: AP-Excite
By SADIE GURMAN
DENVER (AP) — It was an unlikely alliance that authorities said involved a group of pacifist Mexican Mennonites accused of growing tons of marijuana and working with a notoriously vicious Mexican cartel to ship it across the U.S. border.
Abraham Friesen-Remple was one of six members of the Mennonite farming community in Ciudad Cuauht½e9}moc who were indicted and accused of smuggling pot in the gas tanks of cars and inside farm equipment.
Friesen-Remple was sentenced Monday in federal court in Denver to 15 months in prison after pleading guilty to using a telephone to facilitate the distribution of marijuana. A judge said he would likely be released later in the day because of time already served.
Law enforcement officials said the trafficking partnership is nothing new. But the case of Friesen-Remple illustrates how the Mennonites worked with the Juarez cartel in the Mexican state of Chihuahua.
FULL story at link.
FILE - In this May 8, 2014 file photo legally-grown marijuana grows at a dispensary in Denver. In what prosecutors called a drug smuggling conspiracy involving Mennonites and a Mexican drug cartel, a Mennonite man was sentenced Monday, Dec. 1, 2014 to 15 months in prison for aiding the movement of tons of marijuana to the U.S. (AP Photo/Brennan Linsley, File)
Read more: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20141202/us-mennonite-drug-cartel-05935b683c.html
Shutting down for the night.
OS
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