Million-Dollar Drug Shipment Of Drugs Hidden In Butter Jars

Mica for cartelinsider.com

Massive Drug Seizure at Laredo’s Juarez-Lincoln Bridge

Criminal groups often use various methods for the trafficking of illicit substances. This includes materials such as PVC pipes and even fruits. Recently, authorities in the United States seized drugs worth millions of dollars that were hidden in various jars and arrested a man of Mexican nationality.

The American Customs and Border Protection Office (CBP) reported the capture of a man whose name was not revealed. It noted that the subject was transporting several jars of a substance, apparently lard.

It was at the Juarez-Lincoln Bridge, at the entrance gate of Laredo, that CBP officials seized a shipment of methamphetamine weighing just over 140 pounds (around 63 kilograms) of the substance which, according to official reports, would have a street value of over 1.2 million dollars.

The arrest of a 62-year-old man and the containers with drugs was carried out on Wednesday, January 10. The detained person was on board a commercial bus when officers inspected it with a canine.

After the canine examination and inspection, CBP officials discovered a total of 140.76 pounds of suspected methamphetamine within the personal items.

In the image shared by the authorities, it can be seen that there were more than 20 bottles with a red lid containing narcotics with an approximate value of more than 21 million Mexican pesos. According to CBP, the amount of money it would reach on the streets is $1,294,367.00 dollars.

Although the specific substance carried in the jars was not disclosed in the authorities’ report, some local media in the US indicated that it was pork lard.

Beltrán Leyva Organization’s Expansive Drug Operations

Several Mexican criminal organizations have been linked to the shipment of methamphetamine. Beltrán Leyva Organization (BLO) is one group that was sanctioned by the US Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) in early December of last year.  The claim is that, among other substances, the criminal structure also sent fentanyl, an opioid that has caused a health crisis in the neighboring Northern country.

Even on one occasion, American agents named a shipment, possibly linked to the Beltrán Leyva’s, as Methzilla due to the amount of drugs seized from two individuals connected to the criminal structure, Juan Pablo Bastidas and José de Jesús Estrada.

BLO also traffics methamphetamine and fentanyl to the United States. In 2021, Juan Pablo Bastidas Erenas and José de Jesús Estrada Gutiérrez co-invested in a drug shipment that resulted in a record seizure of methamphetamine and fentanyl by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) at the Otay Mesa Port of Entry. Due to its size, the authorities nicknamed the seizure ‘Methzilla’,” reads the documents from OFAC.

The reports indicate that both subjects worked for Oscar Manuel Gastelum Iribe, alias El Músico, who is identified as a leader of the Beltrán Leyva organization.

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Mica

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