A pair of men out of Southern California that allegedly had ties to the drug cartels from Mexico were taken into custody late last week in New York City in the wake of a police drug bust that discovered well over $1.2 million of crystal meth. However, the pair were later released due to the new bail laws for the state.
“This seizure is a calculated treachery by Mexican Cartels to flood the United States with their poison and expand their customer base while driving addiction and increasing profit margins,” explained the special agent in charge of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s (DEA) New York Division, Frank A. Tarentino III, in a release.
This past Monday, authorities stated that Luis Estrada and Carlos Santos allegedly made their way, in a rented vehicle, from California all the way to New York all while carrying roughly 165 pounds of crystal meth that is thought to have originated out of Mexico.
Estrada allegedly transported over 40 pounds of the meth inside of a black suitcase just outside of a Marriot hotel next to the South Street Seaport of Lower Manhattan when police officials managed to take him into custody on July 5.
After three days, authorities managed to also catch Santos who was allegedly near a white van with over 100 pounds of the same drugs stashed inside a pair of air compressor canisters he had started to cut open while hiding in the Inwood neighborhood of Manhattan.
Shortly after, both of the men were let go on supervision just one day after allegedly being caught red-handed because both men, due to the state’s 2019 measures for bail reform, were only issued a charge of second-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance instead of a narcotic. The state’s recent laws classify methamphetamine as a controlled substance, paying no regard to the amount discovered.
“This is a serious problem,” explained Bridget Brennan, the New York City Special Narcotics Prosecutor, reported the New York Post. “The failure to include methamphetamine crimes among bail-eligible offenses was probably an oversight.”
Brennan claimed that when state officials changed the bail laws, New York City had not thought itself to be a distribution hug for the extremely dangerous substance. Due to the change, however, police lost the ability to ask for bail despite arresting someone with no ties to the city and “a load worth of millions of dollars.”
“I hope that when legislators are better informed they will make a change,” she claimed.