Texas Businessman Sentenced for Fixing Used-car Export Trade Along Mexico Border

Federal prosecutors said a group of South Texas businessmen found a way to monopolize that industry — fixing fees, pooling revenues and squeezing businesses that refused to comply. At the center of the scheme, authorities said, was Carlos Martinez, a Mission, Texas, businessman known as Cuate who controlled a transmigrante forwarding agency near the Los Indios border crossing in Texas' Rio Grande Valley. the son-in-law of a former notorious Gulf Cartel leader — helped turn a cluster of supposedly competing businesses into a tightly controlled network of fixed prices, shared revenue, cash payments and intimidation. He pleaded guilty to federal charges and was sentenced to prison time.