‘Cook’ for Mexico-based drug cartel gets US prison sentence

NEW YORK – A member of a violent Mexico-based drug cartel who specialized in improving the quality of methamphetamine will spend 10 years in a U.S. prison.

U.S. Attorney Richard P. Donoghue says Jose Dagoberto Cortez-Perez was sentenced Friday in Brooklyn.

Cortez-Perez was known as a “chemist” or “cook” for a cartel that distributed tons of heroin, methamphetamine, cocaine and marijuana.

He was sent to the U.S. to “clean” methamphetamine that was not sufficiently pure. That increased demand and prices and also made the drug more addictive.

The resident of Sinaloa, Mexico, was arrested in Minnesota.

He pleaded guilty in September to conspiring to import thousands of kilograms of narcotics.