*In early April 2022, it was revealed that the 700 gallons of liquid methamphetamine mentioned in this article were in fact a mixture of chemicals and diesel unrelated to drug trafficking. All charges related to this case have been dropped.
After the seizure of 700 gallons of liquid methamphetamine in a Texas border town, it’s clear that traffickers are using the atypical method to smuggle great quantities of the drug.
The seizure came in mid-February, when a Pharr officer noticed three men pouring liquid into buckets from several drums near a parked tanker truck, according to a Pharr Police Department news release published on Facebook. Crystals on the buckets cued authorities to have the liquid tested by a Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) lab, which determined that the truck’s two tankers were filled with 700 gallons of liquid methamphetamine.
SEE ALSO: Coverage of US-Mexico Border
The haul amounted to some 5,700 pounds of the drug, worth about $10 million, according to the DEA.
US authorities along the Texas border have previously discovered liquid methamphetamine – but in smaller quantities.
In November 2020, El Paso police discovered 10 plastic containers of liquid methamphetamine, weighing some 500 pounds, in the back of a vehicle.
In February that year, officers with US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) seized 1,500 pounds of the drug concealed in 32 bottles that had been hidden among a shipment of multi-use cleaners.
Other seizures include liquid methamphetamine found inside the gas tank of a semi-truck and in drums stashed in the luggage compartment of a bus.
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The seizure was notable for its size, indicating a sophisticated trafficking group able to produce liquid methamphetamine, a form which disguises the drug’s smell and is harder to detect.
While smuggling methamphetamine in its liquid form is not a new technique, there are advantages. Mixed in large containers, the methamphetamine is usually combined with gasoline or acetone, which can mask its smell from drug-sniffing K-9s, Wendell Campbell, a spokesperson for the DEA's Houston Division, told San Antonio News Station KSAT.
The liquid can be boiled off, and “what's left inside that barrel starts to crystallize, and little crystal shards will pop up inside that barrel where it can be scraped out and packaged," Campbell said.
Though liquid methamphetamine is usually converted into powder or crystal methamphetamine, it can also be consumed in liquid form.
SEE ALSO: The US is Now Meth Country
As InSight Crime has previously reported, methamphetamine has returned with a vengeance in the United States. Estimates of methamphetamine use vary, but the most recent figures point to about 2 million users in the US.
After crackdowns in the United States on the precursor chemicals needed to produce methamphetamine, production of the drug moved to laboratories and “super labs” in Mexico. Many of the criminal groups involved in methamphetamine production source precursor chemicals from China and India, obtaining them in large amounts.
The result has been a flood of cheap and potent methamphetamine across the US-Mexico border. According to CBP figures, some 50,000 pounds of methamphetamine were seized in 2012. In 2021, that number jumped to more than 190,000 pounds.
*In early April 2022, it was revealed that the 700 gallons of liquid methamphetamine mentioned in this article were in fact a mixture of chemicals and diesel unrelated to drug trafficking. All charges related to this case have been dropped.
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