MIAMI — A Fort Lauderdale federal judge sentenced a MS-13 gang member to 17 years in prison for running a fentanyl drug-trafficking operation while locked up in a Florida prison.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office says 32-year-old Mario Clifford Rivera, who goes by the nickname “Chuky,” was organizing shipments of illegal drugs from Mexico to California, and then using the U.S. Postal Service to smuggle them to Florida.

Rivera, who was sentenced Wednesday, began shipping the drugs while free on bond in the months prior to beginning a three-year state prison sentence beginning in April 2023. He is serving time for possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, throwing a deadly object into an occupied vehicle and aggravated assault, according to federal prosecutors.

Rivera continued his operation while in the South Florida Reception Center prison in Doral, according to his criminal complaint.

“He used prison phones and a contraband cell phone to communicate with his dealers on the outside,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a Thursday press release. “Rivera directed them on how to sell fentanyl and what prices to charge, all while making sure that he received his share of the drug proceeds.”

Prosecutors convicted Rivera of distributing more than three kilograms of fentanyl beginning in 2023. Two of the kilos he had shipped prior to his prison stint. The other kilo was shipped to Florida while Rivera was inside prison, according to court records.

Rivera and his crew planned to sell the fentanyl for about $1,500 per ounce, according to his criminal complaint.

Rivera pleaded guilty to drug trafficking in January. His federal sentence will begin when he is released from state prison.

“Rivera’s 17-year federal prison sentence should serve as a warning to MS-13 and other terrorist gangs who seek to flood our communities with deadly poisons like fentanyl: Whether you operate on the streets or behind prison walls, we will identify your leaders and members, dismantle your networks, and hold you accountable using the full force of American law,” Hayden O’Byrne, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, said in a statement.

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