A pair of suspected Mexican drug-cartel smugglers was busted with a $1.2 million stash of crystal meth — but had to be freed thanks to New York’s lax bail laws, authorities said Monday.
The two California men, Luis Estrada and Carlos Santos, were allegedly caught red-handed by the US Drug Enforcement Administration as part of a multi-agency investigation. Yet frustrated agents had to stand by and watch as the suspects were cut loose on just supervised release, the federal agency said.
That’s because the two men could only be charged with second-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance, as opposed to a narcotic, under the state’s outdated drug laws, authorities said. And the rap does not qualify for bail according to the Empire State’s soft-on-crime 2019 bail-reform measures, they said.