Guatemalan Man Sentenced to 15 Years for Conspiracy to Distribute Heroin

The United States Attorney for the District of Vermont announced that Diego Walther Anibal Mejia Paredes, 35, of Guatemala, was sentenced December 10, 2017, in United States District Court in Burlington to 180 months of imprisonment following his guilty plea to conspiracy to distribute more than a kilogram of heroin. United States District Judge William K. Sessions III also ordered that Mejia Paredes serve five years of supervised release following the completion of his prison sentence. Mejia Paredes has been in the custody of the United States Marshals Service since his October 2015 arrest.

Court records indicate that during the summer and fall of 2015 Mejia Paredes conspired with Marco Antonio Lam Peralta, of South Londonderry, Vermont, and others, to ship large quantities of heroin from Guatemala, hidden in Guatemalan food supplement packaging, to various addresses in Southeastern, Vermont. In early October 2015 customs officials discovered more than 41 kilograms of heroin in one such shipment, addressed to a restaurant in Manchester Center, Vermont. Agents from the Department of Homeland Security, working with the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Vermont State Police, conducted a controlled delivery of that shipment. Shortly before arresting him, agents observed Mejia Paredes wait for the shipment to arrive, take delivery of the shipment, and drive off with the contraband. Additional investigation led agents to conclude that this was the conspiracy's eighth shipment into Vermont in 2015.

Mejia Paredes' co-defendant, Lam Peralta, pleaded guilty in August 2017, but has since filed a motion seeking to withdraw from his plea. That motion is pending.

This case was investigated by the Department of Homeland Security, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Vermont State Police, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, with assistance from the Manchester, Vermont, Police Department.

Mejia Paredes is represented by Steven Barth. The prosecutor is Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Drescher.