In a shocking case of drug smuggling cunningly disguised, a 51-year-old Texan has been thrown into the slammer after a failed attempt to sneak a staggering volume of methamphetamine across the border, packaged ingeniously within the confines of vehicle batteries. McALLEN, Texas, serves as the backdrop where Richard Nares of Edinburg once stood a free man, but after his plea of guilt in importing substances he intended to be lesser evils, he now faces a stark 60-month federally mandated vacation behind bars, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office, Southern District of Texas.
U.S. District Judge Randy Crane weighed heavy the sinfulness of Nares' cargo—the meth, with its breathtaking purity and volume. When issuing the sentence, the court could not overlook how the massive heap of narcotics were hiding in plain sight inside those innocuous vehicle batteries, effectively shattering Nares' claims that his nefarious intentions were only to traffic what he thought was marijuana, as detailed by the Justice Department. It was during a routine crossing at the Hidalgo Port of Entry on December 20, 2021, that the audacious scheme began to unravel when a vigilant K-9 detected something far more sinister than battery acid—a signal to the presence of narcotics.
Upon dismantling these seemingly typical batteries, authorities uncovered that they were indeed hefty containers for criminal enterprise, stashing two rectangular bundles of illicit drugs in each, repeated once more under the hood, where four additional bundles waited, hoping to evade the eagle eyes of justice. After the laboratory confirmed what the law suspected—the 20.34 kilograms of meth within them—Nares had to concede, admitting his round trip to Mexico was more business than pleasure, with the intent to hand off this heavily equipped Dodge Ram 2500 to another con once on American soil.
Nares had been granted bond, with the understanding that he would be surrendering himself to the U.S. Marshals after he had tied his loose ends on the outside—yet such mercy does little to mitigate the forthcoming half-decade in confinement, as Homeland Security Investigations and Customs and Border Protection's collaborative efforts continue to peel back layers of the ongoing battle at the threshold of America's gates, a task that knows no respite, according to the Justice Department's report.
