MIAMI – Two Miami men were each sentenced to 41 months in prison for stealing 192 medical ventilators that were intended to treat critically ill COVID-19 patients in El Salvador.
The ventilators were owned by the U.S. Agency for International Development and were worth about $3 million.
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According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of Florida, Yoelvis Denis Hernandez, a.k.a. Guajiro, 42, and Luis Urra-Montero, a.k.a. Flaco, 25, stole a tractor trailer loaded with the government-owned ventilators in August 2020 as it was on its way to Miami International Airport.
The truck was stolen from a lot where the driver had left it overnight, investigators said.
Law enforcement have recovered most of the stolen ventilators.
According to prosecutors, Montero was sentenced in federal court this week and Hernandez, who was taken into custody by the Medley Police Department, was sentenced in December.
A 2019 story in the Naples Daily News reported Hernandez and Urra-Montero had previously been arrested in Collier County after stealing a semi-cab and trailer from Miami, and that Hernandez had stolen a semi-cab loaded with $750,000 in laptops three weeks before.