Dominican Republic man sentenced for conspiring to bring cocaine to Wisconsin
(WFRV) – A 29-year-old Dominican Republic man pled guilty and was sentenced for drug charges on Thursday, April 11, after allegedly being involved in a drug ring that sent cocaine to various locations in the United States, including Wisconsin.
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Wisconsin, Herlin Hernandez-Trinidad, also known as “Rainely,” pled guilty to conspiring to possess with intent to distribute five kilograms or more of cocaine on board a vessel.
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He was sentenced to ten years in federal prison.
Court documents show beginning around January 2019 through August 2020, Hernandez-Trinidad and others coordinated maritime shipments of bulk quantities of cocaine from the Dominican Republic to Puerto Rico.
Once the cocaine arrived in Puerto Rico, Hernandez-Trinidad distributed the drugs to individuals like David Quinones-Quinones, also known as “Davo,” a Puerto Rico-based kilogram-quantity cocaine trafficker, who supplied individuals responsible for sending cocaine to various locations within the United States, including Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Court documents further reveal that Hernandez-Trinidad received maritime shipments of cocaine from the Dominican Republic, and on one occasion, he facilitated a 300-kilogram cocaine shipment to Puerto Rico.
Hernandez-Trinidad was also linked to a maritime cocaine load seized by law enforcement on December 10, 2019. On that date, federal and local authorities interdicted a boat with Dominican nationals carrying 181 kilograms of cocaine near the shoreline of Aguadilla, Puerto Rico.
At Hernandez-Trinidad’s sentencing, the judge noted a significant sentence was necessary to reflect the considerable quantity of drugs that were involved in the conspiracy.
“The sentence in this case is a direct result of excellent collaboration between federal, state, and local law enforcement,” stated U.S. Attorney Gregory Haanstad. “I commend the hard work and dedication of everyone involved in investigating and prosecuting this conspiracy.”
This prosecution is the product of a multi-year investigation led by law enforcement agents and officers from the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the North Central High-Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA), the Wisconsin Department of Justice, Division of Criminal Investigations, Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), the United States Postal Inspection Service, and the Milwaukee Police Department.
