Nov. 13--Four members of a cargo theft ring that stole and sold truckloads of consumer goods with an estimated value of more than $5.75 million have all been sentenced to federal prison, prosecutors announced.
The stolen merchandise included Gerber infant formula, Invicta watches, LCD monitors, Ralph Lauren and Hanes clothing, Nestle food products, Mucinex decongestants and Dick's Sporting Goods items, court records show.
Eliesky Sanchez, 31, Reinaldo Garcia Suarez, 39, of West Palm Beach, pleaded guilty to conspiring to buy or receive goods stolen from an interstate shipment between June 2013 and February, when the men were arrested. Alien Moya, 30, of West Palm Beach, and Reinaldo Llabona, Jr., 26, of Miami, pleaded guilty to conspiring to steal some of the shipments.
Sanchez was sentenced to five years in prison; Garcia to four years and two months; Moya to three years and eight months; and Llabona to 18 months. They were all ordered to pay restitution.
Investigators discovered Sanchez and Garcia were offering samples and selling items, at various meeting places in Palm Beach County, that were traced to stolen tractor trailer thefts.
In February, Moya and Llabona picked up a $376,000 load of Nestle products, including baby formula, that they were supposed to drive from Georgia to a WalMart in Winter Haven. They admitted they stole the load, delivered it to Palm Beach County and falsely reported the loaded tractor trailer had been stolen in Polk County.
Moya previously pleaded guilty to his role in a staged accident insurance fraud scheme and was sentenced to four years and 10 months for that crime. He was supposed to be cooperating with federal prosecutors when he committed the cargo thefts and they had to drop him as a government witness in the insurance fraud trial of some of his co-conspirators, prosecutors told the judge at his sentencing.