Smugglers Betrayed By Insiders: More To Be Sentenced In July

Remember Christian Delgado Gomez? You might be forgiven for missing this story in all the heat emanating from pundits after two Pennsylvania pilots blundered too close to Pennsylvania Avenue Wednesday, but Delgado was briefly in the news again, when he stood in shame before US District Judge W. Royal Furgeson in a San Antonio courtroom and listened to the judge sentence him to six months in prison.

The 22-year-old from Nayarit, Mexico, who was in the USA to learn to fly, wasted no time capitalizing on his newfound knowledge and hired his skills out to a gang of immigrant smugglers, known as "coyotes" along the border -- and in the process, became the homeland security incident of January, as Aero-News reported at the time.

Unbeknownst to Delgado, he chose a gang that had enemies, or perhaps competitors, and someone tipped off the authorities that two planes of contraband would be landing in Laredo and Eagle Pass, TX. Federal agents were already on edge because of a threat of terrorist attack in Boston, with which the media associated this tip-off -- both involved two men and two women from China. At Stinson Field, TX, the authorities bagged Delgado, his rented Cessna 172P and his contraband cargo -- the four illegal aliens from China that he'd picked up in Eagle Pass. (Delgado's a stout young man; it must have been cozy in that 172).

(Delgado's flight school classmates, Mexicans Stavros Quintanar, 21, and Francisco Arredondo, 22, were apparently the crew of the Laredo plane. The authorities nabbed them in Austin with one Mexican illegal alien, but -- jackpot! -- 108 lbs of marijuana.

All three men from this plane entered guilty pleas last month, but will not be sentenced until July).

In February, Delgado entered a guilty plea to one charge of transporting an illegal immigrant, and other charges were dropped. Wednesday, according to the Express-News, he told Judge Furgerson that his parents "gave me their support to be here, and I let them down." Delgado's father is an airline pilot in Mexico, and was spending $1,000 a month on his son's training and expenses

Compared to the punishments that some people are proposing for the two ADIZ violators, even discounting John Loftus's bizarre call for their execution, Delgado got off lightly. Along with six months in prison --likely to be served at a minimum-security "camp" -- Delgado has to pay a $500 fine. (A search of the Federal Bureau of Prisons website indicates that he has not yet checked in). He got quite the discount by bargaining his plea; for each of four counts, he could have gotten five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

That might not be the full extent of things, though. A search of the FAA database shows that Delgado doesn't have an airman certificate. Not any more, anyway (he reportedly had a student ticket at the time of his arrest; and yes, we checked "Christian Delgado Gomez" also). No word on whether he'll be able to resume flight training -- or whether his father will still foot the bill. For the next few months, at least, Dad's saving the money while the taxpayers cover Junior's room and board.

The flying prospects of his fellow-students, Quintenar and Arredondo, are bleak. FAA's current, unwritten policy, which is supported by several parts of the regulations including 61.15 and 91.19, is that anyone convicted of using an airplane in a drug offense faces a lifetime ban, and will never be issued an airman certificate in the USA.

The Chinese citizens, who according to ICE agents paid smugglers from $40,000 to $100,000 each to come to the USA, have already been deported.

FMI: www.ice.gov