In plot to smuggle people, cocaine into south Louisiana, the first defendant pleads guilty

An Atlanta man pleaded guilty last week in a plot to smuggle Honduran nationals and cocaine by sea into south Louisiana.

Josue Flores-Villeda, 36, is the first defendant in the eight-man indictment to admit guilt in the conspiracy, which authorities say was run by a twice-bankrupt Pennsylvania labor broker and ended when the smugglers’ boat ran out of fuel 95 miles shy of Grand Isle. Another defendant is scheduled to plead guilty May 18. 

Federal authorities say the conspiracy dates from January 2021. The defendants are accused of charging Honduran nationals as much as $20,000 for transport to the United States. Villeda’s role, he admitted in court documents, was to recruit customers and collect the payments.

They tried to smuggle people and cocaine into Louisiana. Their boat ran out of fuel.

The smugglers’ last trip saw them depart Utilia, Honduras, on Feb. 8, 2022, the crew sailing 23 customers and 53 pounds of cocaine, hidden in a compartment under the captain’s mattress, on a $400,000 yacht named the Pop. They were bound for Cocodrie, authorities say.

But the Pop ran out of diesel fuel in the Gulf of Mexico, and after a storm blew up, the U.S. Coast Guard found it adrift Feb. 14. Federal authorities towed the vessel to Jean Lafitte Harbor and arrested everyone on board. 

Villeda, himself a Honduran national living in the United States without legal permission, was not on the yacht. He admitted that two days earlier, on instructions from the boat owner, labor broker Carl Allison of Irwin, Pennsylvania, he had driven from Atlanta to Cocodrie, boarded a charter boat with extra fuel and set out to resupply the Pop. As the charter approached, the Coast Guard intervened and detained him, too.