Gazebo Gazette
Carlos Armando Rabago-Torres of Mexico, pled guilty on Monday, August 14, 2023, at the Harrison County Circuit Courthouse, to one count of Trafficking of a Controlled Substance. Rabago-Torres was sentenced to serve 18 years in prison by Circuit Court Judge Christopher Schmidt.
The investigation began on June 15, 2022, when investigators with the Gulfport Police Department received information from a confidential informant (CI) that he could obtain a large delivery of Oxycodone from a Hispanic male from Arizona. The delivery was arranged for a location in Gulfport, with investigators operating in an undercover capacity and conducting surveillance of the area.
An undercover officer met with Rabago-Torres and another Hispanic male and finalized the transaction. Rabago-Torres then placed a teddy bear, stuffed with more than 5,000 pills, in the passenger seat of the undercover officer’s car.
Investigators then converged and arrested Rabago Torres and three other accomplices. According to Assistant District Attorney, Ian Baker, who prosecuted the case for the State, “the pills were sent to the Mississippi Forensic Laboratory, where it was determined that the pills were not Oxycodone, but Fentanyl.”
Under Mississippi’s current parole eligibility statute, a person convicted of drug trafficking is not eligible for parole or early release. Thus, Rabago-Torres will serve the entire 18-year sentence day for-day, without parole or early release.
“The Fentanyl crisis, and in particular the sale of Fentanyl disguised as other substances, is destroying the lives of individuals, their families, and our community. The District Attorney’s Office will continue to vigorously prosecute those who sell and distribute this poison in our community,” stated District Attorney W. Crosby Parker.
