TOPEKA, KS—A Mexican citizen who entered the United States illegally was sentenced Wednesday to 30 years in federal prison for drug trafficking in Kansas City, Kan., U.S. Attorney Barry Grissom said.

Mario Saucedo-Avalos, 40, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine. In his plea, he admitted that beginning in January 2014 he was part of an organization trafficking methamphetamine in the Kansas City metro area.

On March 21, 2014, investigators watched as Saucedo-Avalos arrived at a meeting with an undercover buyer. Saucedo-Avalos was driving a white Cadillac Escalade and the meeting took place in the parking lot at a Lowe’s store in Roeland Park. Saucedo-Avalos sold the buyer methamphetamine from a cardboard box containing several pounds of methamphetamine. Four months later, on July 22, 2014, Saucedo-Avalos sold an undercover buyer half a pound of methamphetamine during a meeting in a parking lot at a Lowe’s store in Kansas City, Kansas. On August 14, 2014, Saucedo-Avalos’s drug trafficking organization delivered thirteen pounds of methamphetamine to a Kansas City, Kansas barber shop. The methamphetamine was seized by law enforcement. Investigators also seized money transfer receipts from two of Saucedo-Avalos’s drug residences which proved that Saucedo-Avalos had transferred thousands of dollars to Mexico to pay for drug shipments sent to the United States in furtherance of the drug trafficking conspiracy.

Grissom commended the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Assistant U.S. Attorney Sheri McCracken, and Special Assistant U.S. Attorney James Ward for their work on the case.