BILLNGS – An Arizona man convicted in a drug investigation in which law enforcement seized 34 pounds of methamphetamine in a suitcase he brought to Billings was sentenced Wednesday to 10 years in prison and to five years of supervised release.
Aldo Fabrizio Pardini, 30, of Mesa, AZ, pleaded guilty in January to possession with intent to distribute meth, according to a press release from U.S. Attorney Kurt Alme.
Thirty-four pounds of meth is the equivalent of about 123,216 doses and has an estimated street value of $1.54 million.
U.S. District Judge Susan P. Watters presided over the case.
The press release states prosecutors said in court records that a confidential informant for the Eastern Montana High-Intensity Drug Trafficking Area Task Force learned in July 2018 from a source of meth named Oscar that a relative was flying to Billings from Salt Lake City to conduct the sale of 35 pounds of meth. The meth was coming from Oscar’s associates, who included Pardini and co-defendant Jorge Luis Mendez-Sanchez, of Mexico.
Agents identified another co-defendant, Jose Jesus Islava-Lopez, of Mexico, as Oscar’s relative and followed him from the Billings airport to a Billings hotel. Islava-Lopez checked into a room and met with Pardini in the parking lot. Pardini and Mendez-Sanchez, who were staying together in another room, had transported the meth for the proposed sale from Arizona in Pardini’s car.
Agents detained Islava-Lopez in the lobby. Islava-Lopez told the agents that Oscar had directed him to fly to Billings for a job, rent a room at the hotel and meet a person in a car in the parking lot. After meeting Pardini in the parking lot, Islava-Lopez went to Pardini’s room and took a suitcase Pardini gave him back to his own room. Investigators served search warrants on both hotel rooms and the vehicle and found about 34 pounds of meth in a suitcase in Islava-Lopez’s room.
Mendez-Sanchez was convicted in the case and sentenced to 57 months in prison, while Islava-Lopez also was convicted and sentenced to 65 months in prison.
