Border town mayor faces drug charges
The mayor of the Texas border town of Progreso has been arrested on federal charges that he conspired with his brother and two other men to distribute cocaine.
Gerardo “Jerry” Alanis, 31, and the other defendants are charged with conspiracy to possess more than 5 kilograms (11 pounds) of cocaine with intent to distribute. If convicted, each would face a minimum 10-year federal prison term under the nation’s mandatory sentencing laws. They also could be fined up to $10 million each.
Federal agents arrested Alanis on Monday, said Angela Dodge, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Texas.
Alanis, his brother Frank and two other men are named in a federal grand jury indictment filed March 5 in U.S. District Court in Brownsville.
Frank Alanis was arrested in October after he was charged in an earlier indictment. At the time, he was board president of the Progreso Independent School District and an assistant Progreso city manager.
The new superseding indictment names Gerardo Alanis as well as his brother. It cites three specific dates in 2020 and 2021 on which the defendants allegedly conspired to distribute cocaine. The amounts of cocaine involved ranged from 13.62 kilograms (30 pounds) to 26.36 kilograms (58 pounds), according to the indictment.
In the indictment, prosecutors served notice on the Alanis brothers and their alleged co-conspirators that if they are convicted, the government would seize through forfeiture any connected money or property.
In the October indictment, a federal grand jury charged Frank Alanis, a Weslaco man named Jose Rosbel Salas and three others with conspiring to possess controlled substances, mainly cocaine, with intent to distribute. Salas pleaded guilty. Frank Alanis pleaded not guilty and was released on bond.
Progreso, a Rio Grande Valley town of 6,000 people located 230 miles south of
San Antonio, has a history of public corruption.
In 2014, then-Mayor Omar Leonel Vela pleaded guilty in connection with a scheme to shake down businesses for hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes in exchange for contracts with the city and the school district.
Vela pleaded guilty to federal bribery and conspiracy charges. Federal prosecutors said the mayor’s father, Jose Vela, who was director of maintenance and transportation for the Progreso school district, dominated local government and the school board through his sons, Mayor Omar Vela and school board President Michael Vela.
Together, the Velas demanded bribes and kickbacks from contractors, while Jose Vela, the family patriarch, manipulated school board members through rewards and retaliation, prosecutors said. After one board member defied him, Jose Vela ordered associates to run the man’s car off the road and assault him, an FBI agent testified.