A Texas border city police officer will spend 8 years in prison for his role in protecting a drug stash house. The cop rented out a home to suspected smugglers and even offered his police vehicle for transportation security.
This week, 53-year-old Jose Salinas went before U.S. District Judge Fernando Rodriguez in Brownsville where he was sentenced to 8 years in prison on the charge of possession with intent to distribute a kilogram of methamphetamine. Salinas, a Brownsville Police officer at the time of his arrest, pleaded guilty in August.
The case against Salinas began in early 2020 when a man working as a confidential informant for a federal agency talked with Salinas about using his neighbor’s house on the 2300 block of Quail Drive as a stash house, court documents revealed. At the time, Salinas believed that the informant was a drug trafficker. The house was vacant since Salinas’ neighbor had passed away. Out of town relatives asked Salinas to take care of the property.
During the conversations, Salinas said he would charge $1,500 to hide the drugs in the house, and for additional fees, he could escort drug loads to the house. The two agreed to move a shipment of 20 kilograms of cocaine and methamphetamine.
Prior to that, Salinas asked to meet with the informant’s boss. A federal agent working in an undercover capacity played the role and met at a car dealership. The undercover agent paid Salinas $2,500 to escort a drug load and hide it at the stash house.
For the operation, the undercover agent gave the informant one kilogram of methamphetamine and one kilogram of cocaine, in addition to 18 bricks of fake drugs. Salinas escorted the informant’s vehicle to the stash house and helped secure the load. Federal authorities arrested him shortly thereafter.
Luisana Moreno is a contributing writer for Breitbart Texas.
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