The former mayor of a south Texas town is facing nearly four years in prison for his role in a nine-person cocaine trafficking ring — which was operating out of a local middle school.
The cinematic conspiracy involved now-disgraced former Progreso Mayor Gerardo “Jerry” Alanis, who was sentenced last week alongside his brother, former Progreso ISD school board president Frank Alanis. Also sentenced was Jerry’s predecessor, former Progreso Mayor Arturo Aleman, and six others, MySA first reported. Progreso is a 5,000-person town just three miles north of the Mexico border.
Frank received a 12-year sentence, while Aleman was sentenced to nearly three years, local newspaper ValleyCentral reported. Even a former Progreso school bus driver was involved in the scheme, according to the paper.
Authorities found the smuggling ring lasted from 2020 to 2022, according to a July 24 press release. Over those years, the defendants would “smuggle kilograms of cocaine into the United States from Mexico,” re-package them in the country — sometimes in the IT room of Progreso’s Dorothy Thompson Middle School — then transport them outside state lines, the press release said.
“It is unthinkable that a public official would allow a school of all places to be used as a storehouse for cocaine,” wrote Nicholas Ganjei, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Texas.
Jerry Alanis was prosecuted for “financially investing in multiple cocaine loads,” MySA reported, while Aleman was charged with purchasing tractor trailers.
Jerry Alanis was first arrested in March 2024; just a few weeks later, he resigned as mayor. In February of this year, Alanis reportedly pleaded guilty, confessing to “financially investing” in multiple cocaine shipments. “I acknowledge that my actions were wrong,” Alanis said in court last week.
“I am sorry. I am not asking you to forgive me,” Aleman said in a March court appearance. He also reportedly asked for lenience in his sentencing, though he acknowledged: “I did this to myself.”
The two men are just the latest Progreso mayors to be prosecuted, and they join a decades-long pattern of corruption in the small town.
Before Alanis was mayor, Aleman presided over Progreso for three years. He took over after the disgraced Vela brothers — former Mayor Omar Vela and former City Councilman Orlando Vela — who pleaded guilty to public corruption charges. The Velas’ father was a prominent member of the school board too, and he served prison time for “smuggling marijuana,” according to ValleyCentral.
Aleman and his friends, the Alanis brothers, filled the vacuum left behind by the Velas; they quickly rose to power in Progreso as publicly elected officials. Aleman stepped down when his mayoral term ended in 2017, and Alanis ran unopposed for the role — at just 25 years old. Meanwhile, Frank Alanis had just won a seat on the school board, where he remained until his resignation in May 2024, seven months after his arrest.
“I respect the (12-year) sentence, but I don’t agree with it,” Frank’s lawyer, Carlos Garcia, said at a hearing earlier this month, as per ValleyCentral. “The only reason, in my estimation, that Mr. Alanis received the sentence that he received is because of the position that he held as a politician within the city of Progreso.”
