PANAMA CITY, FLORIDA - Two of six defendants arrested in a large scale drug-trafficking conspiracy with ties to Mexico were convicted yesterday at the conclusion of a four-day jury trial in federal court in Panama City, announced United States Attorney Pamela C. Marsh, Northern District of Florida.

Jose Barajas, 53, of Texas, and Pascual Montor-Torres, 27, of Mexico, were convicted of conspiring with co-defendants Ramiro Gomez-Gomez, Martin Ramirez-Rodriguez, Santiago Valdez-Gomez, Maria Cifuentes-Espinoza, and Florencio Barrios-Hernandez to distribute more than 5 kilograms of cocaine between April 2009 and May 2010. With the exception of Gomez-Gomez, who is a fugitive, each of the co-defendants entered guilty pleas in the case over the course of the past month.

The government’s evidence at trial showed that Barajas was a drug courier who brought multi-kilogram quantities of cocaine from Houston, Texas, to drug stash houses in Dothan, Alabama and Alford, Florida.

He delivered the cocaine to co-defendants Ramirez-Rodriguez, Valdez-Gomez, and Gomez-Gomez. Barajas transported the cocaine in a Ford F150 truck, which had secret compartments within the wheel-well liners of the truck’s front tires.

After Barajas delivered the cocaine, Montor-Torres tested its quality, repackaged it, and sold it in smaller quantities.

In addition to the drug-trafficking charges in this case, many of the defendants also faced gun charges, stemming from a scheme by Gomez-Gomez and Ramirez-Rodriguez to obtain AK-47 machine guns from the Panama City area and export them to Mexico for use by associates engaged in a war with rival drug cartels over control of the lucrative drug routes into the United States.

Ramirez-Rodriguez pled guilty to conspiring to export machine guns from the U.S. and to possession of machine guns. He, Valdez-Gomez, and Barrios-Hernandez also pled guilty to being illegal aliens in possession of firearms.

Barajas and Montor-Torres will be sentenced before United States District Judge Richard Smoak at hearings beginning at 9:45 a.m. on November 10, 2010. They face a mandatory minimum sentence of ten years’ up to a maximum of life imprisonment. Their co-defendants are scheduled to be sentenced before Judge Smoak at hearings beginning at 9:30 a.m. on October 27, 2010.