BURLINGTON, Vt. — Two men have been sentenced to lengthy prison terms for leading a large drug trafficking organization in Maine and Vermont.
Gary Delima and Sharif Cargo were charged with conspiring to distribute more than 100 grams of heroin and 28 grams of cocaine base.
Gary Delima was sentenced federal court in Burlington on Thursday to 13 years in prison and Sharif Cargo was sentenced to 11 years on trafficking and fraud crimes. Both are 28 and are from New York.
Court records say they were leaders of a group that imported heroin and cocaine base to multiple communities in Maine and Vermont from 2012 to 2015. They used local addicts to function as hosts for out-of-state co-conspirators, providing safe harbor for the drugs. Police have linked their activities to at least one overdose death.
According to the U.S. Attorney of Vermont, the two men also were involved sex trafficking, functioning as pimps and using the threat of withdrawal from herion to force them to work as prostitutes.
Delima and Cargo were arrested in Lewiston in March of 2014.
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