Jay Clayton, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York | Department of Justice
United Kingdom national Mittel Patel has been sentenced to 186 months in prison for his role in a conspiracy to import approximately 400 kilograms of cocaine into the United States. The sentence was handed down by U.S. District Judge Jennifer H. Rearden after Patel previously pleaded guilty.
According to information provided by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, Patel operated as a narcotics and weapons trafficker based in London. In 2021, he began communicating with an undercover agent from the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) about potential deals involving both narcotics and military-grade weapons. These included machine guns, assault rifles, sniper rifles, and rocket-propelled grenades.
The investigation revealed that Patel agreed to supply these weapons to individuals he believed were working for a violent drug cartel, specifically to protect a shipment of cocaine crossing from Mexico into the United States. As part of this arrangement, Patel and his co-conspirators sent parts for an AR-15 assault rifle and a sniper rifle with a scope to an address in the United States as sample firearms.
In August 2022, these sample weapons were delivered in exchange for $10,000. Patel confirmed that he could provide additional weapons—including machine guns and RPGs—for larger future orders.
On February 14, 2023, Patel met with the undercover DEA agent in Athens, Greece. He was arrested by Greek authorities following this meeting and extradited to the United States on February 15, 2024.
U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton commented on the case: “The illicit trafficking of narcotics and weapons poses an extreme threat to all New Yorkers and all Americans—and that threat is real,” said U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton. “Mittel Patel conspired to sell an arsenal of military-grade weaponry to persons he believed to be working for a violent drug cartel so the purported cartel could protect a shipment of hundreds of kilograms of deadly narcotics into the United States. The contemplated weapons and drugs could kill thousands of innocent Americans. Thanks to the extraordinary investigative work of the DEA and our other law enforcement partners, Patel was apprehended before he could make good on his efforts to endanger American lives, and he is now incarcerated. Large-scale drug trafficking and the provision of weapons pose a broad and deadly threat to our safety, security, and freedom. Every American should know: the success of drug and weapons suppliers, and the cartels and other transnational criminal organizations they serve, comes at the cost of innocent American lives.”
In addition to his prison term, Patel will serve five years under supervised release upon completion of his sentence.
Jay Clayton praised efforts by multiple agencies involved in bringing Patel to justice including the DEA’s Special Operations Division Bilateral Investigations Unit; DEA offices in New York and Athens; Greece’s law enforcement authorities; as well as support from the Department of Justice’s Office of International Affairs.
Assistant U.S. Attorneys Jonathan L. Bodansky and Jacob H. Gutwillig are prosecuting this case under supervision from the National Security and International Narcotics Unit.
