Inmate sentenced to extra 29 years for running meth trafficking operation

A federal inmate housed in Minnesota has been sentenced to additional time behind bars for his continued role in a methamphetamine trafficking operation.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office says 37-year-old Marco Antonio Avila is charged and convicted for orchestrating an extensive drug trafficking organization in and around Rochester in 2017. While he awaited sentencing, he continued with his trafficking operations and pleaded guilty to another drug trafficking charge.

He was sentenced in 2018 to 26 years in federal prison but since then has continued his drug trafficking efforts, prosecutors say.

According to the attorney’s office, Avila’s phone calls revealed his interactions with a co-conspirator. On Feb. 23, 2020, agents searched one of the co-conspirator’s storage lockers in Woodbury and found 30 one-pound packages of meth.

Avila was sentenced Monday to an additional 29 years (349 months) in prison, followed by 10 years of supervised release.