Meth trafficker who stashed $1.5 million in Dallas drug house sentenced to 20 years

A drug trafficker who had more than $1.5 million stashed in his Dallas residence when agents raided his home was sentenced Wednesday to 20 years in a federal prison, according to U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas Leigha Simonton.

Hector Manuel Castro-Quirino, 49, also was ordered by U.S. District Judge Barbara M.G. Lynn to forfeit the $1,595,185 in cash seized from his home.

Castro-Quirino had pleaded guilty in September 2022 to conspiracy to distribute controlled substances.

Vanesa Cervantes, 39, who was his common-law wife and kept his books, was sentenced to 21 months in a federal prison. She had pleaded guilty in September 2022 to concealment of a felony.

A confidential informant tipped off law enforcement in June 2021 about a drug house on South Acres Drive in Dallas. Over the next few weeks, agents and officers made a series of undercover purchases at the home, according to federal court documents.

On July 13, 2021, a SWAT team executed a search warrant and confronted Castro-Quirino in his kitchen, and he fled to the attic before finally surrendering.

During a search of his master bedroom, authorities found five gallon-sized bags containing bulk quantities of methamphetamine (594 grams) and cocaine (1,447.8 grams), along with drug ledgers containing customer and payment information and 14 firearms, several of them loaded.

They also recovered abundant amounts of cash stashed inside tube socks, shoe boxes, a trash bag, and a banker box that took hours to count, federal authorities said.

In plea papers, Castro-Quirino admitted that he regularly sold methamphetamine and cocaine, noting that he received roughly a kilogram of cocaine each week and a kilogram of methamphetamine each month.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, & Explosives’ Dallas Field Division, the Dallas Police Department, and the Texas Department of Public Safety conducted the investigation.