Tirso Martinez Sanchez: Another sweet deal cut for ratting on El Chapo.....May be out in 1 year

Chivis Martinez Borderland Beat

He operated Chapo’s Mexico to NYC “Cocaine Train”

Yet another sweetheart deal given to a former Sinaloa Cartel operator was handed down on Thursday.  Another sweetheart deal, which in all probability, wasn’t needed to achieve the goal of putting away “El Chapo” for his natural life.

Tirso Martinez Sanchez, “El Futbolista” , who testified against his former boss in the trial of El Chapo, could have received a life sentence had he not sang like a canary.

Brooklyn federal Judge Brian Cogan sentenced him to a nine year sentence, with six years’ time served in US and Mexican prisons.

He could get out in one year.

In giving the sentence Judge Cogan, the same judge who presided over the El Chapo trial, said;

“He gave it everything and he had extremely valuable information, in addition to the risk that he undertook,”. “Of course I have to recognize, at the same time, that one of the reasons his value was so high was that his position in the organization was so high.”

Cogan said the US Bureau of Prisons may also decide that Martinez should get two additional years credit for the time he served in Mexican prison, which is how the time yet to serve could be as little as a year.

Federal prosecutors were granted their request to seize $2m worth of Martinez’s assets.

Before handing down the sentence Martinez spoke through a translator, begging for mercy.

“Believe me, my remorse is sincere.” “So much so, I have… changed my life.”

Martinez was responsible for the “cocaine train”, a trafficking train that ran between Mexico and NYC, that procured between 500m and 800m USD during the time that Martinez was in charge.

The cartel used cooking oil to conceal the cocaine from authorities.

For his work, Martinez testified he made somewhere between 15m and 20m usd. He also admitted to a heavy cocaine addiction until 2007, when he says he became clean and managed to stay clean.

From court hearing to plead guilty and enter plea deal:

THE DEFENDANT: Approximately from 1984 to 2007 I agreed with other people to distribute and import intentionally several kilos of cocaine from Mexico to the United States. For instance, approximately in the year 2000, I devised and managed a system that would use train routes, existing train routes, train routes that we built and warehouses to store kilograms of cocaine from Mexico to different parts of the United States. This included Los Angeles, Chicago and Brooklyn, New York. I knew that doing this was illegal.

To read entire transcript from hearing see below.  Use hyperlink to view in full size

   El Chapo Trial: Tirso Martinez Sanchez Plea Hearing by Chivis Martinez on Scribd