Tuesday, March 19, 2013

A Mexican national has been sentenced to more than five years in prison for illegal possession of firearms, U.S. Attorney Barry Grissom said today.

Guadalupe Burciaga-Alcantar, 39, lived in Wichita but is from Ojinaga, Mexico. He was arrested in October 2012 after a traffic stop by deputies of the Sedgwick County Sheriff’s Department in which two loaded handguns were recovered from a pickup truck Burciaga was driving. Burciaga admitted to the deputies the firearms were his.

Burciaga pleaded guilty in December to the charge of illegal alien in possession of a firearm. He was sentenced Monday by U.S. District Judge Monti L. Belot to 65 months in a U.S. prison to be followed by deportation to Mexico. The same federal statutes that prohibit felons from possessing firearms also prohibit persons unlawfully in the United States to possess firearms, Grissom said.

“The U.S. Attorney’s office in Kansas aggressively enforces laws that prohibit the unlawful possession of firearms,” Grissom said. “Whether they are felons or have no status in the U.S., if they possess firearms they should expect to be prosecuted and incarcerated.”

Grissom praised the Sedgwick County Sheriff’s office and Homeland Security’s Enforcement and Removal Operations for their investigation of the case and Assistant U.S. Attorney Brent Anderson for his prosecution.