A Tucson man, Jose Antonio Cota, was sentenced in federal court to 78 months in prison after pleading guilty to one count of Possession with Intent to Distribute Fentanyl in April 2022.
Cota’s sentence is to be followed by three years of supervised release. Cota pleaded guilty to one count of Possession with Intent to Distribute Fentanyl in April 2022.
According to the Department of Justice, in August 2020, the 33-year-old Cota was a passenger in a commercial shuttle van when it stopped for a routine immigration inspection at a Border Patrol checkpoint near Amado, Arizona. During an inspection of the vehicle and its passengers, Border Patrol agents discovered Cota was hiding several small bundles of fentanyl pills taped to his body.