CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas – A 21-year-old Penitas man has been ordered to federal prison for possessing with the intent to distribute 150 pounds of pure meth, announced Acting U.S. Attorney Jennifer B. Lowery.
Kevin Rangel-Sanchez pleaded guilty April 1.
Today, U.S. District Judge Drew B. Tipton ordered him to serve a 90-month sentence to be immediately followed by five years of supervised release. In handing down the sentence, Judge Tipton noted Rangel-Sanchez’s youth and lack of criminal history, while noting the need for a significant prison sentence to reflect the seriousness of the offense.
On Nov. 30, 2020, Rangel-Sanchez drove a truck into the Border Patrol (BP) checkpoint located near Falfurrias. Authorities noticed that he appeared to be nervous and referred the vehicle to the secondary inspection area for an X-ray examination.
There, they observed anomalies in the vehicle’s tires and cut into them. That resulted in the discovery of steel boxes that had been welded around the rims inside the tires. Those boxes were found to contain 24 foil-wrapped packages of meth weighing a total of 71 kilograms.
The drugs had an estimated street value of more than $5.2 million.
Rangel-Sanchez will remain in custody pending transfer to a U.S. Bureau of Prisons facility to be determined in the near future.
The Drug Enforcement Administration conducted the investigation with the assistance of Border Patrol. Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert D. Thorpe Jr. prosecuted the case.
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