Feds charge two Miami men with stealing COVID-19 ventilators destined for El Salvador

Jay Weaver

Two Miami men have been charged with stealing nearly 200 U.S. government-owned medical ventilators worth about $3 million that were destined for a COVID-19 intensive care facility in El Salvador as part of a federal aid program, authorities said Friday.

An indictment charges Yoelvis Denis Hernandez, 42, and Luis Urra Montero, 24, with conspiring to possess goods stolen from an interstate shipment and and theft of government property. Their court-appointed lawyers could not be immediately reached for comment.

According to the indictment, Hernandez and Montero stole a tractor-trailer loaded with 192 medical ventilators while it was being transported to Miami International Airport in August. Hernandez and Montero stole the tractor-trailer from a lot where the driver had left it overnight, federal prosecutors said. Following an investigation, found most of the stolen ventilators at a storage facility.

The United States Agency for International Development had acquired the ventilators and was sending them to El Salvador to treat critically ill patients suffering from the respiratory disease, COVID-19.

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