URBANA, Ill. (WAND)- A Chicago man has been sentenced to 12 years in federal prison for his role in a 1997 drug conspiracy.
Officials say Hector Castaneda, 59, of the 2400 block of South Springfield Avenue, Chicago, was one of 5 suspects involved in a drug conspiracy from 1996 to 1997 involving almost twenty kilograms of heroin.
According to authorities, Castaneda and his four co-defendants, Ramiro S. Trevino, Raul Cruz-Velasco, Joseph L. Cuevas, and Jose G. Villanueva, transported five kilograms of heroin from Texas to Chicago on four separate occasions.
On the last occasion, July 5, 1997, a deputy with the Kankakee County Sheriff’s Office intercepted the heroin during a traffic stop in Villanueva.
After further investigation, the Drug Enforcement Administration and Kankakee Area Metropolitan Enforcement Group arrested the other conspirators, including Castaneda, when he traveled from Chicago to a motel room in Kankakee, Illinois, and picked up the five kilograms of heroin.
Police say, on July 9, 1997, Castaneda was released from custody on bond and fled from the United States to Mexico, where he lived for over twenty years.
Meanwhile, a trial was held in Urbana, where all four of his co-defendants were convicted, and the court-imposed sentences on them ranging from 12 years and 7 months to 10 years of imprisonment in the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
In 2019 Castaneda returned to Chicago. He was later arrested on an outstanding federal warrant on February 18, 2020, and ordered detained.
Castaneda pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute more than a kilogram of heroin and the attempted possession of more than a kilogram of heroin on March 17, 2021.
In a sentence hearing on October 18, 2021, U.S. District Court Judge Michael M. Mihm found Castaneda responsible for the transportation of almost 20 kilograms of heroin and obstruction of justice for fleeing the United States while on federal bond.
The Drug Enforcement Administration, the Kankakee Area Metropolitan Enforcement Group, and the Kankakee County Sheriff’s Department investigated the case. Supervisory Assistant U.S. Attorney Eugene L. Miller represented the government in the prosecution.
