PHOENIX – A Mesa man, Miguel Sanchez Alvarez, was sentenced to 36 months in prison after being convicted by a jury trial for smuggling firearms and ammunition from the United States.
According to the Department of Justice, Alvarez and an accomplice attempted to smuggle nine semi-automatic handguns, thirteen magazines and two hundred rounds of ammunition into Mexico through the DeConcini Port of Entry in Nogales, Arizona on October 1, 2017.
Alvarez owned all of the firearms and ammunition, according to the evidence, and concealed them at the bottom of a bucket filled with roofing tar, and provided the bucket to his accomplice, Victor Orlando Leal-Medina, to smuggle into Mexico.
Leal-Medina pleaded guilty to the same offense and was sentenced to 14 months in prison in December 2018.