Juan Luis Calles-Tapia
FRESNO – Fresno police officers seized more than 24 pounds of meth on Tuesday and arrested a man who allegedly offered to sell the drugs to undercover detectives.
Officers with the Fresno Police Department seized the crystal methamphetamine, worth at least $200,000, during an undercover bust Tuesday morning in northwest Fresno.
“This is certainly the most significant bust, not just in 2016, but for the last several years,” Police Chief Jerry Dyer said.
Police display confiscated meth
The major shipment of crystal meth was sent from Northern California to Fresno for distribution, where it would have been sold to drug dealers who would have altered it and distributed it throughout the city, Dyer said.
The chief said that a drug bust this large has an impact on crime in neighborhoods across the city.
A lot of the violent crime and most of the residential and commercial burglaries in the community are committed by those addicted to drugs, Dyer said, noting that the department sees “an upwards of 90 percent of the individuals involved in auto theft who are addicted to methamphetamine.”
During the bust, police arrested 40-year-old Juan Luis Calles-Tapia of Modesto. He allegedly offered to sell the drugs to undercover detectives for $7,500 per kilogram, Dyer said.
Calles-Tapia, who is originally from Mexico, had at least a dozen bags of crystal meth in a box in the backseat of his car, Dyer said. He is facing federal drug trafficking charges.
The drug bust and arrest were the result of a six-month joint investigation by Fresno police and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration into meth trafficking operations in Fresno.
