OCALA, FLORIDA — Army Supply Sergeant Luis Rafael Infantes, who believed he was selling stolen military equipment worth more than $150,000 to Mexican drug traffickers, was sentenced to 21 months in federal prison for theft of government property.
Infantes, 21, Elizabethtown, Kentucky, plead guilty to theft of government property.
Infantes’s father, Pedro Luis Infantes, 47, was also sentenced to 21 months behind bars for his role in the thefts.
Pedro Infantes plead guilty last year.
According to the plea agreement, on July 11, 2014, Luis Infantes and his father unwittingly met with a confidential source who was working in cooperation with law enforcement.
Infantes and his father believed that the source had connections to potential buyers affiliated with Mexican drug trafficking organizations, officials said.
Ultimately, authorities said Infantes and his father negotiated a sale price of $153,500 for 17 military-grade, thermal- imaging monoculars, rifle cleaning kits, and other assorted military equipment that had been stolen from the government.
When the father later attempted to complete the transaction, he was arrested and interviewed by the FBI, officials said.
Officials said the father provided false statements to agents about how he had acquired the military items and how the serial numbers on the items had been removed. Pedro Luis Infantes stated that he had purchased the equipment in that condition at assorted gun shows.
Authorities, however, said Luis Rafael Infantes, an active-duty supply sergeant for the United States Army, had stolen the items from the Fort Knox military installation.
The case was investigated by the FBI.