{"id":391062,"date":"2026-07-29T20:44:44","date_gmt":"2026-07-29T20:44:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/391062\/"},"modified":"2026-07-29T20:44:44","modified_gmt":"2026-07-29T20:44:44","slug":"el-paso-woman-pleads-guilty-in-child-smuggling-case-involving-thc-laced-candy-doj-says-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/391062\/","title":{"rendered":"El Paso woman pleads guilty in child smuggling case involving THC-laced candy, DOJ says"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>EL PASO, Texas (KFOX14\/CBS4) \u2014 An El Paso woman has pleaded guilty to her role in a human smuggling operation that federal prosecutors say brought unaccompanied migrant children into the United States from Mexico by allegedly using THC-laced candy to sedate them.<\/p>\n<p>The U.S. Department of Justice announced Tuesday that Dianne Guadian, 33, of El Paso, pleaded guilty to four counts of aiding and abetting the bringing of aliens into the United States for financial gain. <\/p>\n<p>According to court documents, Guadian and three other members of an alien smuggling organization illegally transported unaccompanied children ranging in age from 5 to 13 years old from Ciudad Ju\u00e1rez into the United States.<\/p>\n<p>Federal prosecutors said the group sometimes gave the children THC-infused candy to keep them sedated during the smuggling process. The smugglers allegedly presented U.S. identification documents to Customs and Border Protection officers, falsely claiming the documents belonged to the children and that they were the children&#8217;s parents.<\/p>\n<p>After crossing the border, the children were transported to El Paso, according to the Justice Department.<\/p>\n<p>RELATED: <a href=\"https:\/\/foxsanantonio.com\/news\/local\/el-paso-man-pleads-guilty-to-smuggling-drugged-children-from-mexico-into-us?src=link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">El Paso man pleads guilty to smuggling drugged children from Mexico into US<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Authorities said one child became ill during a smuggling attempt and was taken to a local hospital, where the child was diagnosed with THC poisoning.<\/p>\n<p>One of Guadian&#8217;s co-defendants, Manuel Valenzuela, was sentenced on July 1 to five years in federal prison for his role in the operation.<\/p>\n<p>Assistant Attorney General A. Tysen Duva said the defendants endangered children for financial gain.<\/p>\n<p> &#8220;This defendant and her co-conspirators engaged in serious and dangerous conduct, which included giving THC-laced gummies to children to sedate them while smuggling them from Mexico into the United States, all in order to make money,&#8221; Duva said in a statement.<\/p>\n<p>Guadian faces a mandatory minimum sentence of five years in federal prison and a maximum sentence of 15 years.<\/p>\n<p>A sentencing date has not yet been scheduled. <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/foxsanantonio.com\/sign-up\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Sign up<\/a> to receive the top interesting stories from in and around our community once daily in your inbox.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EL PASO, Texas (KFOX14\/CBS4) \u2014 An El Paso woman has pleaded guilty to her role in a human&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":390575,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[138,140,139],"class_list":["post-391062","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-el-paso","tag-el-paso","tag-el-paso-headlines","tag-el-paso-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391062","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=391062"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391062\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/390575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=391062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=391062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=391062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}