Easter eggs brimming with meth, heroin land Mississippi smuggler in prison, feds say
A truck full of Easter candy featuring Barbie and the “Despicable Me” minions was actually carting nearly 110 pounds of drugs, federal prosecutors said.
Now the driver faces more than a decade behind bars.
Cleveland James McKinney, 30, of Atlanta, was sentenced Tuesday to around 12 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to illegally transporting drugs smuggled into the United States from Mexico, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Mississippi said in a news release. He also must pay a $1,500 fine.
“This criminal endangered not just our citizens but our children, stooping so low as to disguise this poison as candy just so he could make a quick buck, caring not that it would cause damage, destruction and death in our communities,” U.S. Attorney Mike Hurst said in the release.
According to prosecutors, McKinney came to Brandon, Mississippi — just east of Jackson — in April 2018 to pick up a shipment of drugs from Brownsville, Texas. It contained nearly 100 pounds of meth and 10 pounds of heroin.
McKinney was supposed to take the drugs to a co-conspirator in Atlanta, but federal investigators intercepted the shipment before he arrived, according to the release.
“The drugs were concealed in what appeared to be shrink-wrapped, bulk packaged children’s candy,” the release states.
A photograph shared by prosecutors showed dozens of pastel-colored Easter eggs alongside boxes and bottles of candy — and at least one lollipop.
Agents with Homeland Security Investigations swapped the drugs for a similar but fake substance in substantially similar packaging, according to the release. They arrested McKinney shortly after he picked up the shipment.
He pleaded guilty to one count of conspiring to distribute a controlled substance in November, court documents show.
Prosecutors said his co-conspirator, Evelyn Michelle Hernandez, was sentenced around the same time to 14 years in prison.
