Press Release
Trafficker Arrested With $1 - $2 Million in Meth Inside Duffel Bag Sentenced to 30 Years in Prison
For Immediate Release
U.S. Attorney's Office, Northern District of Texas
A drug trafficker who retrieved methamphetamine from a stash house in Dallas was sentenced today to 30 years in federal prison, announced U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas Leigha Simonton.
Omar Jorge Valle Estrada, a 37-year old citizen of Mexico, was convicted at trial of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute methamphetamine and possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine in December 2022. He was sentenced Tuesday by U.S. District Judge Brantley Starr, who presided over the trial.
According to evidence presented at trial, law enforcement conducting surveillance at a stash house on Holcomb Road in Dallas observed Mr. Estrada drive up to the residence in a white Chevy Malibu. He used a code word to gain access to the property, which was being used by a transnational criminal organization as storage for nearly $10 million worth of Mexican methamphetamine.
Two men emerged from inside the home carrying duffel bags, which they placed in Mr. Estrada’s passenger seat.
After he departed the home, law enforcement pulled him over for operating with an expired registration and discovered 120 pounds of crystal methamphetamine inside the duffel bags. Experts put the street value of the methamphetamine, which was 99% pure, between $1.1 and $2.2 million.
Codefendants Angel Cabrera and Joaquin Salinas – who admitted they were concealing millions of dollars of methamphetamine inside boxes of cauliflower – pleaded guilty prior to trial. Mr. Salinas received a life sentence; Mr. Cabrera received a sentence of more than 21 years.
At Mr. Salinas’ sentencing hearing, testimony showed that the Salinas had ties to Sureños XIII criminal street gang and the Puro Tango Blast street and prison gang.
The Drug Enforcement Administration’s Dallas Field Division conducted the investigation with the assistance of the Dallas Police Department, the Hickory Creek Police Department, the Fort Worth Police Department, and the Dallas County District Attorney’s Office. Assistant U.S. Attorneys George Leal and John Kull prosecuted the case.
This prosecution is part of an Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces (OCDETF) investigation. OCDETF identifies, disrupts, and dismantles the highest-level drug traffickers, money launderers, gangs, and transnational criminal organizations that threaten the United States by using a prosecutor-led, intelligence-driven, multi-agency approach that leverages the strengths of federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies against criminal networks.
Contact
Erin Dooley
Press Officer
214-659-8707
erin.dooley@usdoj.gov
Updated May 3, 2023
Topic
Drug Trafficking