Federal authorities reported Monday that they sentenced a man to 55 months in prison who pleaded guilty to trafficking weapons from the state of Florida to Puerto Rico through the United States mail.
Carlos Osorio Pérez also faces a sentence of three years of supervised release following as part of his guilty plea he admitted that he bought almost 100 weapons in Florida and sent them to his cronies on the island for sale. The federal prosecutor charged him with the crime of conspiring to participate in the business without a firearms trafficking license.
Osorio Pérez also acknowledged that he knew that the buyers of the weapons in Puerto Rico would use them illegally. The recipients included drug trafficking organizations. In conversations made by WhatsApp, Osorio Pérez recommended that an unlicensed firearms dealer on the island speak directly with the “street bosses.”
It was also alleged that on December 14 and 15, 2020, Osorio Pérez caused four Glock pistols, one Zastava AK-47 type pistol, one Mini AK-47 type pistol, and four lower receivers for AR-15 type pistols to be mailed.
Osorio Pérez was charged along with four other cronies. Co-defendant Luz Damariz Pérez Velázquez has already been sentenced to 36 months in prison and three years of supervised release. Her duties included sending money to Florida to purchase weapons, receiving them in Puerto Rico through the mail, and delivering them to accomplices to sell on the island.
They used Western Union and Walmart to transfer money from sales.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) was in charge of the investigation. Assistant US Attorneys Jeanette Collazo, Carlos Cardona and Jonathan Gottfried prosecuted the case.
