Two Mexican drug cartel smugglers who were busted with $1.2 million in crystal meth were allowed to walk free thanks to New York’s bail laws.
According to officials, Luis Estrada and Carlos Santos were caught red-handed by the US Drug Enforcement Administration as part of a multi-agency investigation. The suspects, however, are now on supervised release because the 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charged with second-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance, as opposed to a narcotic, under the state’s outdated drug laws.
The charges mean the men do not qualify for bail according to New York’s soft-on-crime 2019 bail reform measures, authorities said.
“This is a serious problem,” said New York City Special Narcotics Prosecutor Bridget Brennan to the New York Post.
“The failure to include methamphetamine crimes among bail-eligible offenses was probably an oversight.
“At the time the bail laws were changed, New York City was not a distribution hub for methamphetamine. Now it is, and we are unable to even ask for bail, even if we arrest someone with no ties to the city and a load worth millions of dollars,” Brennan said.
