Picked up 40 bricks in Chula Vista

Carlos Enriquez told a detective that he was contacted by a person in Tijuana who told him, “He had a job for Enriquez.” Enriquez said he crossed the border into the United States, picked up a large duffle bag from someone in Chula Vista, and was given an address in Los Angeles to make a delivery, according to testimony in court today, September 10.

Local border patrol officers pulled over a red Chevy Silverado truck with California license plates on Interstate 15, at 10:30 am on July 12. Agents testified that Ramirez was the driver and sole person in the truck. In the rear seat of the truck was a large black duffle bag that contained 40 plastic FoodSaver packages, each of these contained about a pound of meth, according to officers.

Agent Elias Perez, who has been with the U.S. Border Patrol 22 years, testified that the 40 packages were “like bricks,” and the total gross weight was 20.8 kilograms or 45.8 pounds of methamphetamine.

The cash value in California of meth is $2,000 per pound, according to San Diego County Sheriff’s detective Dang. The drug specialist said the final total value of 45 pounds of meth, knowing the price of meth when sold in grams on the street, was “almost a million dollars.”

Enriquez allegedly told the detective “he has done this four or five times before.”