MCALLEN, Texas — Texas State Troopers seized more than a million dollars in cartel money from Chicago that was destined for Mexico. The seizure took place Monday morning near Edinburg, Texas, when a state trooper pulled over a 2007 Peterbilt tractor towing a trailer, information provided to Breitbart Texas by DPS revealed.
Inside the tractor authorities found 41,239,755 in bundles of cash and arrested the driver.
On Tuesday, 51-year-old Roman M. Sanchez the driver of the tractor went before U.S. Magistrate Judge Peter Ormsby who formally charged him with cash smuggling charges and ordered he be held without bond.
Breitbart Texas had access to the criminal complaint in the case which revealed that special agents with DPS obtained information about a significant cash smuggling operation. The agents coordinated with a Texas State Trooper who pulled the tractor trailer as it travelled south along Farm-to-Market 281 since he had been speeding and had an expired registration.
Sanchez gave the trooper permission to search the vehicle and a police dog alerted authorities to some kind of contraband inside. Authorities took the vehicle to the Pharr International Bridge where U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers assisted with using x-ray and imaging equipment to find a hidden compartment.
Texas DPS agents and the trooper searched in the compartment and discovered several bundles of cash.
As part of the investigation authorities learned that the driver had picked up the money in Chicago and was on his way to Mexico. The money was payment from a drug transaction that another driver had taken up north. According to investigators, the driver had smuggled cash for cartel members at least five or six times before.
Last summer, South Texas saw an immigration crisis as Mexico’s Gulf Cartel sent hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens through this border area rapidly overwhelming the capabilities of the Department of Homeland Security.
As reported by Breitbart Texas, the Gulf Cartel would often use human smuggling operations to tie down law enforcement while they moved drug loads in another spot. In response to the overwhelming activities of the Mexican cartels, Texas DPS deployed a large contingent of Texas State troopers that have been carrying out highway interdiction operations aimed at disrupting cartel drugs going north and cartel cash going south.
Ildefonso Ortiz is an award winning journalist with Breitbart Texas you can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.