A Florida man has been sentenced to federal prison for his role in a large-scale cocaine trafficking operation that involved several states, including Florida.
Sonic Torres-Garcia, 27, of Kissimmee, Florida, was sentenced after pleading guilty to conspiracy to distribute cocaine. Torres-Garcia was sentenced to 180 months in prison by US District Judge J. Randal Hall, which will run concurrently with other pending state and federal prosecutions. He was also fined $2,500 and will spend three years of supervised release at the end of his sentence.
Torres-Garcia was part of a drug trafficking network that operated in multiple counties, including Richmond and Liberty counties in Georgia, and was in charge of transporting large amounts of cocaine, methamphetamine, and other illicit drugs from Puerto Rico to the continental United States. The conspiracy, which began in January 2016, involved several people who supplied drugs throughout the Southern District of Georgia and other places.
Torres-Garcia provided kilograms of cocaine to other members of the conspiracy, including Demarr Clayton Lee, 55, of Miami, Florida. Lee is currently serving a 98-month federal prison sentence after pleading guilty to the plot. In total, 26 offenders involved in Operation Carpet Ride have been convicted to prison terms of up to 20 years.
This investigation was performed by the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces (OCDETF), which focuses on the most violent drug cartels and criminal organizations. The case was probed by multiple agencies, including the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the United States Postal Inspection Service, Homeland Security Investigations, and state and local law enforcement in Florida and Georgia.