Dallas drug trafficker found with meth valued up to $2.2 million sentenced to 30 years

James Hartley
·2 min read
13

A drug trafficker in Dallas who picked up methamphetamine from a stash house in the city has been sentenced to 30 years in prison, according to a news release from the U.S. Department of Justice.

Omar Jorge Valle Estrada, a 37-year-old Mexican citizen, was convicted in December of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute and possession with intent to distribute meth, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Texas. Estrada was sentenced Tuesday by U.S. District Judge Brantley Starr.

Law enforcement was conducting surveillance at a stash house on Holcomb Road in Dallas when authorities saw Estrada pull up to the residence in a white Chevy Malibu and use a code word to get into the property, which was being used by “a transnational criminal organization” to store nearly $10 million worth of methamphetamine from Mexico, according to the news release.

Two codefendants, Angel Cabrera and Joaquin Salinas, later admitted to authorities that they were concealing millions of dollars in methamphetamine in cauliflower boxes at the house and pleaded guilty prior to going to trial, according to the news release. Salinas was sentenced to life in federal prison and Cabrera was sentenced to more than 21 years.

In the sentencing hearing for Salinas, testimony demonstrated ties between Salinas and the Sureños XIII street gang and the Puro Tango Blast street and prison gang, according to the Justice Department.

While watching the property, authorities saw two men leave the house carrying duffel bags they put in Estrada’s passenger seat and Estrada drove off, according to the news release. Law enforcement pulled Estrada over for driving with an expired registration after he left the house and found 120 pounds of 99% pure crystal meth in the bags, estimated by the Justice Department to have a street value of between $1.1 million and $2.2 million.

Police from Fort Worth, Dallas and Hickory Creek worked with the DEA Dallas Field Division and the Dallas District Attorney’s Office to conduct an Organized Crime Enforcement Task Force investigation, the Justice Department said in the release.