DeKALB – Three men who used a DeKalb barn and an Esmond farm to traffic cocaine during the summer of 2016 were sentenced Tuesday, according to federal court records.

Edgar Eduardo Mendez-Peña, 26, of La Grulla, Texas, told police he was forced to drive a semitrailer from the Rio Grande Valley to a red barn on Dresser Road, records show. He told authorities he was forced to do so because his brother had lost about 264.5 pounds of cocaine in 2015 and had not been seen since Jan. 1, 2016.

According to a complaint filed in federal court in the Southern District of Texas, federal agents observed Jesus Cepeda-Cano, 31, of Aurora arrive at the barn June 13, 2016, and watched Manuel Alejandro Alvarez, 25, of Rio Grande City, Texas, wave to Cepeda-Cano before he pulled his truck into the barn.

About a half-hour later, agents saw Cepeda-Cano drive out of the barn and followed him to his residence in the 1000 block of Indian Avenue in Aurora, where they seized 60 bundles of cocaine, the complaint states.

Agents also seized 60 more bundles of cocaine from a farm in the 27000 block of Esmond Avenue that same night, according to the complaint.

Altogether, agents seized 264 pounds of cocaine from the house in Aurora and the farm in Esmond, according to a news release sent in August 2016 by then-DeKalb County State's Attorney Richard Schmack. They also seized $436,000 in cash. The street value of the cocaine was estimated at about $12 million. DeKalb County Sheriff Roger Scott said at the time that it likely was the largest cocaine bust in county history, and that the drugs likely were destined to a larger market.

Alvarez told police he was paid $4,500 to find a secluded ranch in the DeKalb area big enough for semitrailers to distribute drugs and to receive bulk American cash to be sent to the southern border, the complaint said.

According to a previous Daily Chronicle report, Alvarez rented the 5-acre Esmond property from Marvin Henke Jr. of Clare.

Henke said he was approached months before the bust by a man from Texas who said he wanted to rent the four-bedroom house at 27037 Esmond Road to use as a base for what he said was a family trucking operation. The man said he planned to join his uncles in the trucking business, hauling freight from a Rochelle hub.

On Tuesday, Mendez-Peña was sentenced to seven years in federal prison, Alvarez was sentenced to two years, and Jose Roman, 33, of Chicago received a 10-year sentence for his role in the drug trafficking, records show.

Cepeda-Cano was sentenced to more than seven years in prison in September, records show.