A Mexican man has been sentenced to more than 24 years in federal prison for trafficking in methamphetamine.

U.S. Attorney Barry Grissom says Roberto Quinonez-Quintero, 28, was sentenced to 292 months in federal prison.

The defendant pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute methamphetamine.

In his plea, Quinonez-Quintero admitted that in 2008 he was part of a drug trafficking organization that distributed methamphetamine from Mexico in metropolitan Kansas City. Quinonez-Quintero coordinated loads of methamphetamine from Mexico to Kansas City, where the drugs were stored, cut with MSM or dimethyl sulfone and packaged.

Investigators gathered evidence that Quinone-Quintero and other conspirators used a kitchen at house in Kansas City to cook pounds of MSM to prepare it for mixing with methamphetamine. Cooking MSM made the cutting agent look more like the crystals in methamphetamine, making it more useful as an additive.