Christopher “Fats” Texidor. (Dauphin County Prison)
A 36-year-old man was convicted of smuggling thousands of pounds of marijuana worth millions of dollars through the U.S. mail from a used car lot he co-owned in Pennsylvania.
Christopher “Fats” Texidor was convicted of conspiracy to traffic more than 1,000 kilograms — or more than 2,200 pounds — of marijuana, conspiracy to use a firearm in furtherance of drug trafficking, use of a means in interstate communication to commit a crime of violence, and drug trafficking, the U.S. Attorney’s Office announced in a news release.
His defense attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Law&Crime.
Five co-defendants have pleaded guilty in the case and are awaiting sentencing. A sixth co-defendant pleaded guilty to being the marijuana source from California. He was sentenced to 57 months in prison, authorities said.
The indictment, unsealed following the arrest of Texidor and his co-defendants in November 2020, lays out the case that stretches from October 2018 to May 2020. That’s when he and his co-defendants in the so-called “Fastlane Group” smuggled thousands of pounds of marijuana into Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, by mail, arranging hundreds of shipments. The packages included “multiple pound quantities” of marijuana from their source in Southern California. In return, the group shipped bulk cash payments back by mail to their source in Southern California.
They operated out of numerous locations, but their primary hub was Fastlane Auto Sales, LLC in Harrisburg that Texidor co-owned, court documents said.
They were violent, court documents said. They threatened those suspected of interfering with their business.
In November 2019, they invaded the home of a person suspected of interfering with their drug trafficking activities. The following month, they shot into an occupied home. Months later, they robbed someone’s vehicle, court documents said.
They used GPS devices to track shipments and to track people “suspected of interfering with their drug trafficking activities,” the indictment said.
Authorities said the maximum penalty for the offenses is life imprisonment, a term of supervised release following imprisonment, and a fine.
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