A man accused of driving tanker filled with liquid meth in South Texas was cleared of all criminal charges, federal court records show.
The supposed drug bust happened on Feb. 15, after Pharr police encountered men who were pouring liquid from a tanker trailer into 55-gallon barrels. When officials noticed crystallization forming around the barrels, they tested the liquid, which had tested positive for methamphetamine. The bust was estimated to be worth at least $10 million.
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“This massive drug seizure impacts way beyond our region where it was headed,” Pharr Police Chief Andy Harvey said in a news release shortly after the incident. “This stemmed from a patrol officer’s attention to detail when he observed something out of the ordinary and he used our resources to further investigate.”
Juan Carlos Toscano Guzman, a Mexican national, was arrested at the scene and spent nearly six weeks in jail before his charges were dropped after the liquid was tested further, according to the Forth Worth Star-Telegram.
It is “standard procedure to send the substance seized for further testing at a DEA certified lab to confirm the substance, the purity and the weight,” the DEA spokesperson told the newspaper.
Instead, Guzman was hauling a mixture of diesel and oil, his lawyer told the newspaper.
The charges against Guzman were dropped on March 25, court records show.