Efrain Pacheco-Ovalles, a 30-year-old from Culiacan, Sonora, Mexico, was sentenced to 21 months in prison and three years of supervised release by U.S. District Judge Angela M. Martinez on January 29, 2026. Pacheco-Ovalles pleaded guilty to assaulting a federal officer and conspiracy to transport illegal aliens for commercial or financial gain.
According to the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Arizona, Pacheco-Ovalles worked as a scout for a transnational criminal organization (TCO) in January and February of 2025. Scouts are trusted members who help TCOs move people and controlled substances across the border without being detected by law enforcement. They use mountain tops in remote areas such as the Tohono O’odham Indian Nation to monitor smuggling corridors with binoculars, radios, and cellphones to communicate with other conspirators. The defendant admitted he was supposed to scout for three months and would be paid $40 for each person who successfully reached Phoenix.
On February 4, 2025, U.S. Border Patrol agents carried out an operation at Nine Mile Mountain in the Tohono O’odham Indian Nation to disrupt a scout site. Agents found Pacheco-Ovalles hiding under a tree; he fled down the mountain as agents pursued him both on foot and from the air. While running about 1.5 miles downhill, Pacheco-Ovalles took pictures and videos of the agents and discarded his binoculars and backpack. When an agent tried to apprehend him, Pacheco-Ovalles intentionally elbowed the agent in the face, causing a black eye.
“This case is part of Operation Take Back America, a nationwide initiative that marshals the full resources of the Department of Justice to repel the invasion of illegal immigration, achieve the total elimination of cartels and transnational criminal organizations (TCOs), and protect our communities from the perpetrators of violent crime,” according to information released by authorities.
“The U.S. Attorney’s Office will not tolerate assaults on federal agents nor the criminal networks that exploit our southern border,” said U.S. Attorney Timothy Courchaine. “In Tucson and across Arizona, law enforcement officers put their lives on the line to stop these networks from smuggling people and drugs into our country. We will protect our agents, secure the border, and hold accountable those who profit from lawlessness.”
The case was investigated by U.S. Border Patrol’s Tucson Sector with prosecution handled by the United States Attorney’s Office in Tucson.
More information about this office can be found at http://www.justice.gov/usao/az/
