Two men in Miami were each sentenced to 41 months in prison for stealing medical ventilators bound for a Covid-19 care facility in El Sa...
Two men in Miami were each sentenced to 41 months in prison for stealing medical ventilators bound for a Covid-19 care facility in El Salvador as part of a US aid package, federal authorities said on Friday. from Florida.
The crime happened in August 2020, according to a Press release issued by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida following the conviction of the second of the two men.
The men, Yoelvis Denis Hernandez, 42, and Luis Urra Montero, 25, stole a tractor-trailer from a South Florida parking lot that was loaded with 192 ventilators, worth around $3 million , which were bound for Miami International Airport for shipment to El Salvador by the U.S. Agency for International Development, the statement said.
At the time, El Salvador was experiencing a pandemic flare-up and was desperately seeking help to save critically ill residents.
A criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida says the truck driver left the vehicle in a warehouse parking lot overnight in Boynton Beach, Florida, about 60 miles north of Miami , and that Mr. Hernandez and Mr. Montero drove to the lot shortly before 2 a.m. on August 9 and untied the 53-foot Hyundai trailer.
They then towed the trailer – along with a tractor stolen a month earlier – to Loxahatchee Road in Parkland, Florida, where local authorities later found it, according to the complaint.
Both men were eventually found and pleaded guilty to stealing government property. Mr. Hernandez was convicted in December of last year, and Mr. Montero was convicted this week. Neither could be immediately reached for comment on Saturday.
Authorities said they had recovered “most of the stolen ventilators”, but did not say exactly how many.
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