Read more: Local, Crime, John Derrick Phelps, William Leon Holley, Liquid Meth, Meth, Methamphetamines, Beer Bottles, Liquid Meth in Beer Bottles, Drug Smuggling, Drug Trafficking, Customs and Border Protection, Customs, CBP, Hidalgo Reynosa International Bridge, Judge Brian Owsley, Hidalgo County, Rio Grande Valley, Texas, Mexico
Two Houston area men are behind bars in the Rio Grande Valley after they tried to smuggle $737,000 dollars worth in liquid meth inside 12 beer bottles.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers arrested John Derrick Phelps and William Leon Holley on Monday.
Court records show that Phelps walked up from Mexico on the pedestrian lanes of the Hidalgo-Reynosa International Bridge.
Phelps allegedly acted suspiciously and was sent to secondary inspection where customs officers discovered the beer was actually about 3.75 gallons of liquid meth.
The 23-year-old Missouri City man said that the deal had been pre-arranged and that Holley had dropped him off at the bridge.
Phelps told investigators that he took a taxi in Reynosa to a leather goods store were someone gave him the case of beer.
U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents located Holley on the American side of the border.
Holley who said he was supposed to get paid $300 to bring Phelps to Reynosa and put him and the beer bottles on a Houston-bound bus in McAllen.
Both men claimed that they suspected something was wrong but didn't know what the bottles were filled with.
Both Phelps and Holley appeared before U.S. Magistrate Judge Brian L. Owsley in McAllen on Wednesday.
Court records show that both Phelps and Holley are American citizens from the Houston area.
Judge Owsley denied bond for both of them until Friday morning hearing.
