SACRAMENTO: Alejandro Acosta, Jr, 26, Aaron Quintero, 23, Jesus Israelas Carrion Corrales, 51, Gonzalo Ruiz Quezara, 28, Victor Sandoval, 41, and Jose Burgueno Sanchez, 39, entered pleas of no contest to illegally importing 2800 pounds of marijuana into the United States on June 12.
All six men were immediately sentenced and received prison sentences of 2 years.
These charges stem from a multi-agency response to a Panga boat landing near Mill Creek in Big Sur in the early morning of June 12.
The United States Coast Guard first tracked the boat at sea by radar and started a ground response when the boat entered United States waters just after midnight and began a high speed run toward the Big Sur Coast.
A Panga boat is an open fishing vessel usually equipped with outboard motors often used for fishing. This particular Panga boat was 30 feet long, had a modified extra-large fuel bladder and two large outboard motors.
A San Luis Obispo County task force responded from the south. Federal agents with Homeland Security Investigations, Drug Enforcement Agents, Customs and Border Patrol, and Bureau of Land Management responded form the Bay Area.
State officers from Fish and Wildlife and the Highway Patrol responded as well as the Monterey County Sheriff’s Office.
San Luis Obispo officers were first on scene and discovered the Panga boat on the beach with almost half of its 111 bales of marijuana already unloaded.
No persons were found near the beach or the marijuana. A campsite with a view of the beach and of Highway one was discovered which contained a GPS unit which had been on the Panga boat and contained waypoints which traced the boats origin back to just south of Ensenada, Mexico three days prior.
Law enforcement officers stopped a panel van which contained four men who were all wet and sandy from the waist down.
The van had an identical tent as was found at the campsite. The van also contained two CB radios which were identical to and tuned to the same channel as the radio on the boat.
Five other men were arrested who were wet and sandy, could not account for their presence on the Big Sur coast and but could be tied to the panel van and Panga boat.
