Credit: Office of the Special Narcotics Prosecutor for the City of New York
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NEW YORK (77WABC) — A pair of suspected Mexican drug-cartel smugglers were arrested after the discovery of $1.2 million dollars of crystal methamphetamine — then freed under New York’s lax bail laws.
According to the Office of the Special Narcotics Prosecutor for the City of New York, the defendants — Luis Estrada and Carlos Santos of California were arrested by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration as part of a multi-agency investigation. The two men could only be charged with second-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance, as opposed to a narcotic, under the state’s outdated drug laws.
“The influx of crystal methamphetamine into New York City is the latest example of how synthetic drugs produced outside of the country are flooding our streets,” said Special Narcotics Prosecutor Bridget G. Brennan. “We are all too familiar with the rising death toll and other destructive effects of these substances. Users need to be aware that dangerous synthetic drugs have thoroughly saturated the market.”
According to the criminal complaint, Estrada was arrested near the South Street Seaport in Manhattan shortly before 10 a.m. on July 5 carrying a suitcase containing 40 pounds of the drug. On July 8, authorities said Santos was arrested in Inwood in Manhattan with 100 pounds of crystal meth and a small amount of cocaine.
Both men were arraigned in Manhattan Criminal Court within a day of each other last week, then freed on supervised release. The charges do not qualify for bail according to New York’s soft-on-crime 2019 bail-reform measures.
