By Todd Neeley
Three Florida men each were sentenced to two years in prison after pleading guilty to charges stemming from a series of frozen beef and pork thefts from packing plants across the Midwest in 2022.
Yoslany Leyva Del Sol, Ledier Machin Andino and Delvis L. Fuentes were sentenced on July 26 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Southern Florida, according to court documents. In addition, the men were ordered to serve three years of supervised release and each to pay $206,956.44 in restitution.
In October 2022, police arrested the men and charged them with transportation of stolen goods and money laundering. The men pled guilty to transportation of stolen goods. The total loss from the thefts was estimated at $9 million.
All three men cooperated with investigators, leading prosecutors to recommend reduced sentences as part of the plea agreements. Each man could have faced up to 10 years in prison.
Investigators identified about 45 thefts that occurred across Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota, South Dakota, North Dakota and Wisconsin last year.
The men operated what state and federal investigators said was a "sophisticated organized criminal enterprise," going from state to state, scoping out various packing plants and driving away with semi-tractor-trailer loads of frozen meat.
Federal investigators were tipped off to the operation by the Lancaster County Sheriff's office in Lincoln, Nebraska. The sheriff's office launched an investigation into the theft of several semi-trailers and loads of frozen beef in the county on June 27, 2022.
According to the complaint filed on Oct. 21, 2022, in federal court, Homeland Security began tracking the three men's movements as they trekked across the country.
On June 26 and June 27, 2022, the Lancaster County Sheriff was notified about the two thefts of semi-tractors and trailers loaded with beef valued at nearly $500,000, stolen from a location near Emerald, Nebraska, a tiny town just west of Lincoln. The trailers were recovered but were empty.
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