{"id":37905,"date":"2025-05-21T09:02:23","date_gmt":"2025-05-21T14:02:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/?p=37905"},"modified":"2025-05-21T09:02:23","modified_gmt":"2025-05-21T14:02:23","slug":"puerto-rican-sentenced-for-trafficking-cocaine-via-usps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/2025\/05\/21\/puerto-rican-sentenced-for-trafficking-cocaine-via-usps\/","title":{"rendered":"Puerto Rican Sentenced for Trafficking Cocaine via USPS"},"content":{"rendered":"

Puerto Rico Man Sentenced to More Than 6 Years in Federal Prison for Trafficking Cocaine to Manchester through the United States Postal Service<\/span><\/h1>\n

5\/13\/25 – CONCORD \u2013 A Puerto Rico man was sentenced today in federal court for drug trafficking in New Hampshire, Acting U.S. Attorney Jay Mccormack announces.<\/p>\n

Lewistone Baez Miranda, 50, was sentenced by U.S. District Court Samantha Elliott to 78 months in federal prison and 3 years of supervised release.\u00a0 In January of this year, Baez Miranda pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to distribute cocaine.\u00a0 He was indicted on this conspiracy charge along with five other co-defendants in December 2023.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe defendant will spend the next six years in federal prison because he chose to use the United States Postal Service to facilitate his drug trafficking enterprise by shipping multiple kilograms of cocaine from Puerto Rico to New Hampshire,\u201d said Acting U.S. Attorney Jay Mccormack. \u201cThe United States Postal Inspectors in New Hampshire are tireless in their efforts to prevent the mail from being used for drug trafficking.\u00a0 Drug traffickers should take today\u2019s sentence as a warning of what awaits if they try to use the mail for crime in the Granite State.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIllegal narcotics have no place in our neighborhoods or in the U.S. Mail. Mr. Miranda\u2019s actions endangered not only communities in New Hampshire, but he also endangered the U.S. Postal Service employees who move and deliver the mail every day. The U.S. Postal Inspection Service will continue our work to investigate and prevent the mail stream from being used by drug traffickers. We commend the efforts and collaboration between our agency and the Manchester Police Department for the successful outcome of this case,\u201d said Ketty Larco-Ward, Inspector in Charge of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, Boston Division<\/p>\n

According to court documents and statements made in court, the defendant was the leader a drug trafficking organization that shipped cocaine from Puerto Rico to Manchester, New Hampshire. The defendant\u2019s son, based in Puerto Rico, used fictitious information to send packages of cocaine through the United States Postal Service to Manchester at the direction of the defendant. The cocaine was often packaged in 500-gram or 1,000-gram bundles and hidden inside children\u2019s games. The defendant employed co-conspirators to retrieve the packages of cocaine for him in Manchester. The defendant also sent suspected drug proceeds to his son in Puerto Rico, in one instance sending him a parcel containing $11,000. Between September 2020 and December 2021, the defendant\u2019s drug trafficking organization shipped over 5.6 kilograms of cocaine from Puerto Rico to Manchester for redistribution.<\/p>\n

The charging statute for the drug offense provides a sentence of up to 20 years in prison, a term of supervised release of at least three years, and a maximum fine of $1,000,000. Sentences are imposed by a federal district court judge based upon the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and statutes which govern the determination of a sentence in a criminal case.<\/p>\n

The United States Postal Inspection Service led the investigation. Valuable assistance was provided by the Manchester Police Department. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Aaron Gingrande and Cesar Vega are prosecuting the case.<\/p>\n

Read PEN’s previous coverage here<\/a>.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Puerto Rico Man Sentenced to More Than 6 Years in Federal Prison for Trafficking Cocaine to Manchester through the United States Postal Service 5\/13\/25 – CONCORD \u2013 A Puerto Rico man was sentenced today in federal court for drug trafficking in New Hampshire, Acting U.S. Attorney Jay Mccormack announces. Lewistone Baez Miranda, 50, was sentenced […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":33705,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,72,89],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37905","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-breaking","category-theftandfraud","category-postal-crime","last_archivepost"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37905","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37905"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37905\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37906,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37905\/revisions\/37906"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33705"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37905"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37905"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37905"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}