Homeland Security Task Force investigation leads to 27-year sentence for Guatemalan man trafficking cocaine in the Eastern District of Texas

SHERMAN, Texas -A Guatemalan national who was extradited to the United States to face drug trafficking charges, has been sentenced to over 27 years in federal prison in the Eastern District of Texas, announced U.S. Attorney Jay R. Combs.

Crysthian Omar Escobar Angel, 48, a Guatemalan national, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to manufacture and distribute more than five kilograms of cocaine knowing it would be unlawfully imported into the United States. Escobar Angel was sentenced to 327 months in federal prison on April 7, 2026, by U.S. District Judge Amos L. Mazzant.

According to information presented in court, in 2015, federal agents identified and began investigating a large-scale drug trafficking organization operating throughout Central and North America. The organization used a sophisticated infrastructure to manufacture and distribute multi-ton quantities of cocaine from Colombia, through Central American countries and into the United States for further distribution. Escobar Angel was identified as managing a portion of those activities in Guatemala and indicted in the Eastern District of Texas in 2019.

Based on information presented in court, Escobar Angel was involved in threats of violence including this statement he sent in a text message, "Let me talk with someone I am just going to need some specifics for tomorrow and we will throw some poison on him…. [l]eave that [expletive] to me…. Let's [expletive] him up…."

Escobar Angel was extradited from Guatemala to the United States in January of 2024 and pleaded guilty to federal drug trafficking charges in June of 2025.

This case is part of the Homeland Security Task Force (HSTF) initiative established by Executive Order 14159, Protecting the American People Against Invasion. The HSTF is a whole-of-government partnership dedicated to eliminating criminal cartels, foreign gangs, transnational criminal organizations, and human smuggling and trafficking rings operating in the United States and abroad. Through historic interagency collaboration, the HSTF directs the full might of United States law enforcement towards identifying, investigating, and prosecuting the full spectrum of crimes committed by these organizations, which have long fueled violence and instability within our borders. In performing this work, the HSTF places special emphasis on investigating and prosecuting those engaged in child trafficking or other crimes involving children. The HSTF further utilizes all available tools to prosecute and remove the most violent criminal aliens from the United States.

This case was investigated by the Drug Enforcement Administration.

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