Baytown man sent to prison following Homeland Security Task Force cocaine investigation

Date: Sept. 18, 2026

Contact: newsroom@ci.irs.gov

Brownsville, TX – A Baytown man has been sentenced for possession with intent to deliver cocaine.

Pablo Luis Fuentes-Rivas pleaded guilty July 2, 2025.

At a Sept. 17 hearing, U.S. District Judge Fernando Rodriguez Jr. ordered Fuentes-Rivas to serve 70 months in federal prison. His prison term will be immediately followed by three years of supervised release. 

The investigation revealed that on March 29, 2025, authorities conducted an undercover operation involving the delivery of a tractor-trailer loaded with cocaine to the Houston and Baytown areas.

Three vehicles traveled in tandem with the drug load and conducted counter-surveillance during the trip. Efren Pinales-Hernandez drove one of the vehicles. 

Law enforcement later observed Fuentes-Rivas, Pinales-Hernandez, and Daniel Teniente-Marfileno at a Baytown truck lot offloading bundles of cocaine from the tractor-trailer into a Ford F-150 driven by Teniente-Marfileno.

After Teniente-Marfileno left with the cocaine, law enforcement conducted a traffic stop, took him into custody, and seized approximately 182.25 kilograms of cocaine with an estimated street value of nearly $2.3 million. Authorities then arrested Fuentes-Rivas and Pinales-Hernandez at the truck lot as they attempted to leave.

Teniente-Marfileno, a Mexican citizen residing in Baytown, also pleaded guilty and is set for sentencing Sept. 29. 

Pinales-Hernandez, Weslaco, is set for further criminal proceedings.

Fuentes-Rivas has been and will remain in custody pending transfer to a Federal Bureau of Prisons facility to be determined in the near future.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Oscar Ponce prosecuted the case.

This prosecution is part of the Homeland Security Task Force 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 U.S. 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. HSTF South Texas comprises agents and officers from Immigration and Customs Enforcement Homeland Security Investigations; FBI; Drug Enforcement Administration; Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives; U.S. Marshals Service; U.S. Postal Inspection Service; Department of Transportation; IRS Criminal Investigation; Interpol/Department of State; and the Naval Criminal Investigative Service with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Texas leading the prosecution.

IRS-CI is the law enforcement arm of the IRS, responsible for conducting financial crime investigations, including tax fraud, narcotics trafficking, money laundering, public corruption, healthcare fraud, identity theft and more. It is the only federal law enforcement agency with investigative jurisdiction over violations of the Internal Revenue Code. IRS-CI has 16 field offices located across the U.S. and maintains an international presence through attaché posts abroad.