Man receives 30-year sentence in Dallas case involving meth concealed in cauliflower

A man received a 30-year prison sentence Wednesday in a federal case involving a Dallas stash house and methamphetamine concealed in cauliflower, the U.S. attorney’s office for the Northern District of Texas said.

Omar Jorge Valle Estrada, 37, faced up to life in federal prison after a jury found him guilty in December on charges of conspiracy to possess methamphetamine with intent to distribute and possession with intent to distribute. He must also serve five years of supervised release following his prison term, according to court documents.

Valle’s attorney, David Olivas, called the sentencing “excessive” for a drug charge, but that U.S. District Judge Brantley Starr “made a wise decision and took everything into account.” Olivas also said that a lack of criminal history for Valle allowed the sentencing to be reduced to a maximum of 30 years.

Evidence at trial showed authorities were surveilling a stash house on Holcomb Road in Pleasant Grove when they saw Valle drive up in August 2021. He used a code word to access the property where a “transnational criminal organization” stored nearly $10 million worth of methamphetamine, according to the office.

Two men came outside carrying duffel bags that they placed in his passenger seat, and after he left, law enforcement pulled him over for an expired registration and found 120 pounds of crystal meth in the bags, prosecutors said.

Experts who evaluated the meth to be 99% pure with a street value between $1.1 and $2.2 million, according to the office.

His codefendants, Angel Cabrera and Joaquin Salinas, admitted to concealing millions of dollars of meth inside boxes of cauliflower and pleaded guilty. Salinas received a life sentence, and Cabrera got a sentence of more than 21 years.

Testimony showed Salinas had connections to multiple gangs with ties to Mexican drug cartels.

At his sentencing hearing, agents testified that their investigation showed the drugs were imported from Mexico and that Salinas had firearms at his home to protect the drugs, authorities said.

In January, authorities found more than $7.5 million of marijuana in a shipment of cotton candy at the Texas border.

About a year ago, officers at the Laredo Port of Entry seized more than $35 million in methamphetamine in a commercial truck hauling strawberry purée.