A Mexico native was sentenced to serve 18 years in prison after attempting to sell over 5,000 fentanyl pills stuffed in a teddy bear to an undercover officer in Gulfport.
34-year-old Carlos Armando Rabago-Torres was issued the prison sentence in a Harrison County courtroom on Monday for one count of trafficking a controlled substance.
The Gulfport Police Department began investigating Rabago-Torres in June 2022 after officers received word that he would receive a large amount of oxycodone from an unnamed man in Arizona.
Investigators planned for Rabago-Torres to deliver the narcotics to a location in Gulfport, where an undercover officer met with him and another man to complete the transaction.
Rabago-Torres was then seen placing a teddy bear containing the pills into the undercover officer’s vehicle before he and three other men were arrested at the scene.
The evidence was tested at the Mississippi Forensic Laboratory shortly after, with Assistant District Attorney Ian Baker releasing that the pills contained fentanyl instead of oxycodone.
Rabago-Torres is now expected to serve the entire sentence without parole or early release.
