Crime & Safety
Hayward Man Sentenced To Federal Prison
The U.S. Attorney's Office said that he tried to flee the country before sentencing.
HAYWARD, CA — A Hayward man who attempted to flee the country before sentencing was given ten years in prison for his part in a cocaine smuggling operation out of San Francisco International Airport (SFO), the U.S. Attorney's Office announced on Tuesday.
Lemack Bellot, 43, was convicted in March of facilitating the smuggling of cocaine through SFO from May through November of 2018. Unbeknownst to Bellot, he wasn't actually moving cocaine because he was negotiating with a confidential source working for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA).
The DEA investigated Bellot after they heard that he had been paying airport employees to allow drugs to be smuggled through security.
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The DEA operative posed as an Atlanta-based drug trafficker and met with Bellot at a bar in Hayward where the two discussed their operation. Bellot made arrangements with the operative six times over eight months, prosecutors said.
The government also said that Bellot attempted to sell heroin to the confidential source and to buy cocaine from him.
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Bellot attempted to flee the country to Haiti before his originally scheduled sentencing in July. He was captured by Coast Guard officers on board a vessel bound for the Caribbean country.
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