An MS-13 gang member who was deported to Honduras and returned to the United States, only to kidnap a Tennessee teen who refused to join the notorious street gang, has been sentenced to 90 months in prison for drug and firearm charges, the Department of Justice announced Friday.
Franklin Pineda-Caceras, 22, was charged by a Nashville court in July 2019 for immigration violations, drug trafficking, and firearm after he had been deported to Honduras.
Pineda-Caceras, who is also known as ‘Bomba’ or ‘Bomb,’ initially pleaded guilty to illegal reentry of a previously deported alien; being an illegal alien in possession of ammunition; being an illegal alien in possession of a firearm; possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number; and possession of marijuana and cocaine with the intent to distribute.
But he then elected to take the firearm possession and in the furtherance of a drug-trafficking crime and a federal jury found him guilty on February 9.
The Department of Justice said Pineda-Caceras unlawfully crosse the United States-Mexico border in January 2014 and was deported in June 2016.
At some point he returned to the U.S. and was arrested during the October 2017 police raid of a Nashville home where authorities recovered 41 grams of cocaine, more than 44 grams of marijuana, a cache of firearms and ammunition.
Pineda-Caceras was deported once again in October 2018 but managed to slip past the southwestern border in January 2019 and was arrested for kidnapping a Nashville high school teenager who objected to joining the gang.
Authorities nearly arrested in July 2019 when he drove off in his vehicle and crashed through a front yard, nearly running over his girlfriend, son and the woman’s mother.
Pineda-Caceras was finally apprehended in September 2019 after he was involved in an accident and suffered several injuries. Cops at the scene searched his car and found scales, baggies, packaged cocaine, a gun, whose serial number has been erased, an AK-47 and ammunition.
Authorities also found several cellphones and discovered that he had been involved in drug transactions hours before the crash.
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