A North Texas drug trafficker who had large quantities of meth, cocaine, and cash stashed at his residence was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison this week.
As explained in a news release on February 9 from the North Texas U.S. Attorney’s office, Hector Manuel Castro-Quirino, 49, was found to be in possession of “bulk quantities” of controlled substances and over $1.5 million in cash when agents executed a search warrant on his home on July 13, 2021. Ledgers containing information about his drug exchanges with customers and over a dozen firearms, many loaded, were also uncovered at the scene.
Castro-Quirino plead guilty to conspiracy to distribute controlled substances in September 2022.
He was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Barbara M.G. Lynn and ordered to forfeit $1,595,185 in U.S. currency seized from his home, according to the release.
Castro-Quirino was brought to the attention of the authorities when a confidential informant alerted them to a drug house in Dallas on South Acres Drive in 2021, according to court documents. This is located in City Councilman Tennell Atkins’ District 8 in southern Dallas.
Law enforcement began conducting undercover purchases at the alleged drug house until enough evidence had been collected to obtain a warrant and make a solid arrest.
When a SWAT team first entered the suspect’s home, they found him in the kitchen. While he eventually surrendered, he did briefly attempt to evade arrest by heading to the attic, as per the release.
A copious amount of drugs — 594 grams of methamphetamine and 1,447.8 grams of cocaine — was allegedly found in Castro-Quirino’s master bedroom in five-gallon-sized bags.
As law enforcement began searching the home, officers found five gallon-sized bags of large quantities of methamphetamine totaling 594 grams and 1,447.8 grams of cocaine in the master bedroom. The cash, which took officers several hours to count, had been stuffed in socks, shoe boxes, a trash bag, and a banker box, according to the release.
Castro-Quirino allegedly eventually admitted to his drug dealings to investigators, explaining that he would receive a kilogram of cocaine a week and a kilogram of meth a month and that his common-law wife, 39-year-old Vanessa Cervantes, kept the books.
In 2022, Cervantes plead guilty and was sentenced to 21 months in federal prison Wednesday for misprision of a felony.
Multiple law enforcement agencies, such as the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, & Explosives’ Dallas Field Division, the Dallas Police Department, and the Texas Department of Public Safety, conducted the investigation against Castro-Quirino.
The Dallas Express reached out to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Texas for additional information and comment but was told no comment could be made beyond public record.
Drug offenses in Dallas have increased by nearly 3% year-over-year, according to the Dallas Crime Analytics Dashboard. However, the most startling statistics are those related to drug overdoses, which often involve opioids like those peddled by Castro-Quirino. As The Dallas Express previously reported, a spokesperson for Dallas Fire-Rescue’s Emergency Medical Services said that they had logged 942 overdose incidents in 2020, 1,238 in 2021 (31% increase over 2020), and 1,925 in 2022 as of December 20 (55% increase over 2021).
