He was to be paid $7,000 to transport 23 pounds of meth from Mexico into the United States, but this never happened. Instead, Julio Cesar Loyde Jr. was caught transporting the drugs and was sentenced to 18 months in federal prison.
Loyde, of Brownsville, appeared Thursday before U.S. District Judge Fernando Rodriguez Jr., who sentenced him to 216 months in federal prison to be followed by five years of supervised release.
He was remanded to the custody of U.S. Marshals, federal court records show.
According to federal court records, Loyde, on Sept. 29, 2021, pleaded guilty to one count of possession with intent to distribute 23 pounds of meth.
The incident occurred Sept. 26, 2020, as Loyde tried to cross the Veterans International Bridge in Brownsville in a 2006 BMW.
Loyde’s vehicle was referred to a secondary inspection area, where a canine alerted U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers to the presence of narcotics inside, a federal criminal complaint states.
During an inspection of the BMW, the officers discovered “anomalies within the natural voids of the vehicle’s trunk and doors,” the federal criminal complaint reads.
A search of the area lead to the discovery of a crystalline substance that later tested positive for meth.
According to the federal criminal complaint, Loyde, during an interview, admitted to knowing he was transporting drugs from Mexico into the U.S. and that he was offered $7,000 in exchange for the transportation.
