Hauling drugs to Chicago from Mexico gets owner of Texas trucking company 25 years in prison
Jose Farias, 44, hid drugs in the hollowed-out wheel axles of tractor-trailers and arranged for his drivers to transport the drugs
CHICAGO -- The owner of a Texas trucking company was sentenced to 25 years in prison this week for using his business to haul hundreds of pounds of heroin and cocaine to Chicago.
Jose Farias, 44, who lived in Mexico and owned a trucking business near the border in McAllen, Texas, hid drugs in the hollowed-out wheel axles of tractor-trailers and arranged for his drivers to transport the contraband to various warehouses in the Chicago area in 2015 and 2016, according to the U.S. attorney's office for the Northern District of Illinois.
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Two of the warehouses are in Naperville and Sugar Grove, and other shipments went to an abandoned auto lot in the West Garfield Park neighborhood and an auto repair shop in Channahon, prosecutors said.
Authorities said searches of those areas yielded about 120 pounds of heroin, nearly 40 pounds of cocaine and about $630,000 in cash.
The drugs would be dropped off for sellers to distribute throughout the Chicago area, and in return, money would be concealed in the same tractor-trailers to be returned to Texas and Mexico, prosecutors said.
Farias was convicted in 2021 of drug conspiracy and possession charges. Seven other people have previously been convicted in federal and state courts as part of the investigation.
"The drugs [that the] defendant caused to be distributed were resold to thousands of people, fueling addiction, tearing families apart, and decimating communities - all for the profit of [the] defendant and his co-conspirators," Assistant U.S. Attorneys Richard Rothblatt and Kristen Totten wrote in a sentencing memorandum.
