Trucker falsely accused of hauling 700 gallons of meth in Texas. How can that happen?

A trucker accused of hauling 700 gallons of liquid meth is free from custody after laboratory testing proved his cargo actually didn’t contain narcotics.

Juan Carlos Toscano Guzman, a Mexican national, was arrested on Feb. 15, and spent nearly six weeks behind bars on false accusations of transporting an estimated $10 million worth of methamphetamine.

His fateful cargo made headlines in February, after the Pharr Police Department announced the drug bust.

“This massive drug seizure impacts way beyond our region where it was headed,” Chief Andy Harvey said at the time. “This stemmed from a patrol officer’s attention to detail when he observed something out of the ordinary and he used our resources to further investigate. This is great policing!”

But Guzman didn’t have any meth. The retired oil field worker was transporting a mixture of diesel and oil, his lawyer, Oscar Vega, told McClatchy News in a phone interview.

While Guzman was stopped in Pharr, he caught the attention of a local police officer, a criminal complaint read.

The officer happened to be in the area for an unrelated call when he saw several men pouring a “liquid substance” out of large barrels. He approached Guzman and started a conversation. As they talked, the officer saw that tanker trailers on the property were missing hazard placards, documents read.

The officer called dispatch and more first responders arrived. They noticed “crystallization” around the barrels and in a hose hung across a nearby chain link fence.

Pharr police and firefighters tested Guzman’s cargo on the spot, saying it tested positive for methamphetamine.

Lab agents from the DEA arrived and also found the liquid tested “presumptive positive” for meth, estimating it was about 700 gallons in total.

“It’s an enormous amount of drugs,” Vega said — or so authorities thought. Because of the scale of the drug bust, federal investigators took over the case.

“These guys were convinced they were on to something huge. But those tests are not reliable,” he said.

Pharr police declined to comment, saying the case “is a federal matter.”

Drug testing field kits are used by police across the country every day to determine whether a given substance is a drug or narcotic, and what kind.

Many in law enforcement defend the kits, with some claiming the results have never been wrong. But they are far from infallible and sometimes mistake harmless substances for drugs.

Because of the margin for error, the tests are generally used to establish probable cause, but courts often will not accept them as evidence, ProPublica reported.

“It was not meth. It was not meth and I tried to explain it to them during the detention hearing, but their tests showed a positive result and so they had enough to detain my client,” Vega said.

In Guzman’s case, further testing in a laboratory setting ultimately exonerated him, a DEA spokesperson told McClatchy News.

It is “standard procedure to send the substance seized for further testing at a DEA certified lab to confirm the substance, the purity and the weight,” the DEA spokesperson said.

Court documents show charges against Guzman were dropped on March 25.

“I don’t know what he’s going to do next,” Vega said of his client. He added that Guzman seems content to have proved his innocence and hasn’t expressed any desire to sue or take legal action.

This story was originally published April 6, 2022 at 12:49 PM with the headline "Trucker falsely accused of hauling 700 gallons of meth in Texas. How can that happen?."