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(THE DAILY SIGNAL) – As the Trump administration cracks down on illegal immigration, the Justice Department this week advanced cases against illegal aliens running criminal enterprises—including a gun trafficking scheme orchestrated from behind bars.
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In Georgia, the Justice Department announced the 25-year sentence of a Mexican illegal immigrant who used a contraband cell phone from inside a Georgia state prison to manage a massive drug and gun trafficking conspiracy.
Servando Corona Penaloza, a Georgia state prison inmate, was sentenced on Wednesday to 25 years in federal prison for orchestrating the sale of more than 1,000 kilograms of methamphetamine and fentanyl and the purchase of more than 200 military-style firearms transported to Mexico for use by Mexican cartels, according to the Justice Department.
He was in prison serving a sentence for a Gwinnett County drug trafficking offense.
Fourteen other members of Corona Penaloza’s organization were convicted and sentenced, with two defendants awaiting sentencing in the coming months, according to the Justice Department.
“These defendants flooded our community with deadly drugs and used the proceeds of their drug deals to arm narco-terrorist Mexican cartels with high-powered weapons of war,” said U.S. Attorney Theodore S. Hertzberg in a public statementopens in a new tab.
The Georgia case was part of a larger Homeland Security Task Force initiative established by President Donald Trump’s Executive Order 14159, Protecting the American People Against Invasion, signed on the first day of his second term. The task force is a whole-of-government partnership charged with eliminating criminal cartels, foreign gangs, transnational criminal organizations, and human smuggling and trafficking rings operating in the United States and abroad.
“As a result of the exceptional and dedicated work by our federal, state, and local law enforcement partners under the auspices of Atlanta’s Homeland Security Task Force, there are no more drugs coming in—or firearms going out—at Corona Penaloza’s direction,” Hertzberg said.
U.S. District Judge Mark H. Cohen sentenced Penaloza, 38, to 25 years in prison—at least 15 years of which will be served consecutively to his 30-year state prison sentence. This will be followed by 10 years of supervised release, according to the Justice Department.
In March 2024, federal agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives identified numerous cash purchases of M249S firearms in the Atlanta area. These are military-style weapons with a retail cost of $10,000 to $12,000 per unit, according to the Justice Department.
Concurrently, the Drug Enforcement Administration learned that Penaloza brokered large-scale cocaine and methamphetamine transactions and coordinated the importation and distribution of hundreds of kilograms of fentanyl and thousands of kilograms of methamphetamine on behalf of a large Mexican drug cartel.
The DEA probe found that Penaloza coordinated the drug and firearm sales by using a contraband cell phone while serving a 30-year state prison sentence.
During the investigation, the ATF determined Penaloza and his conspirators organized the purchase and trafficking of at least 223 guns to Mexico valued at more than $700,000. Most of these guns were purchased with cash obtained through the drug sales.
In November, Penaloza pleaded guilty to conspiracy to traffic firearms, conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute fentanyl and methamphetamine, and conspiracy to engage in concealment money laundering.
Meanwhile, in Oregon, two illegal immigrants from Romania pleaded guilty to running a food stamp fraud conspiracy with others.
The Justice Department worked with the U.S. Department of Agriculture in the case brought against two Romanian illegal immigrants, Aramis Manolea, 35, and Cristina Manolea, 35, who pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud the United States.
The two have the same last name, but DOJ information and local news reporting on the case do not indicate how they are related.
The stolen benefits were valued at $27,000, according to the Justice Department.
From April 2025 through November 2025, the two conspired to use stolen Electronic Benefit Transfer account information, or EBT accounts, and PINs to fraudulently buy items eligible through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, according to the Justice Department.
The goods were loaded into vans and trucks for shipment to California, according to the Justice Department.
In November, a federal grand jury in Portland indicted the two on 26 counts related to conspiracy to defraud the United States, unauthorized use of access devices, possession, production, and trafficking of device-making equipment, and aggravated identity theft.
Although they have not yet been sentenced, the two face a maximum sentence of five years in prison, a $250,000 fine, and three years of supervised release. Both agreed to pay restitution and will be sentenced in late May.
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This article was originally published in The Daily Signal.
