Four individuals from Arizona are part of a group of seven former public officials who were sentenced in a bribery and extortion conspiracy.

Agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation began Operation Lively Green, an undercover investigation, in December 2001.

Among those convicted are former members of the Arizona Army National Guard Rocky D. Rios, 39, Leslie Hidalgo, 26, Moises Hernandez, 21, and Viviana Hernandez, 25. They will each spend between 12 and 51 months in jail.

The defendants pleaded guilty to one count of conspiring to enrich themselves by obtaining cash bribes from persons they believed to be narcotics traffickers, who were actually FBI agents.

The former members of the Guard wore official Army uniforms, carried official identification and drove official vehicles in order to bypass Border Patrol checkpoints and avoid other law enforcement officers while protecting cocaine shipments.

As part of an agreement, the defendants also provided information about a trafficking organization that distributed cocaine from Arizona to other cities in the southwestern United States.