Local prosecutors and law enforcement officers will receive seized money a Hidalgo County man was carrying in a backpack in December, after connecting the more than $63,000 in cash to the sale of illegal drugs.
The Hunt County District Attorney’s Office filed a suit in January with the 196th District Court, claiming the money was contraband tied to narcotics trafficking.
Judge Andrew Bench awarded a default judgment in the case March 16. The district attorney’s office will split the cash with the Hunt County Sheriff’s Office, which arrested Oscar Adrian Barron-Flores after discovering the money.
Sheriff’s Narcotics Officer Harry Washington conducted a search of a passenger bus, stopped at the bus stop on Interstate 30 in Caddo Mills, on the night of Dec., 29, 2014.
Washington encountered Barron-Flores, 30, of San Juan, Texas and obtained permission to search Barron-Flores’ backpack, where he discovered $63,811 in wrapped bills.
Barron-Flores at first said he was just carrying the backpack for a friend, whose name he did not know, between Indianapolis, Ind. and McAllen, in exchange for the friend’s help with expenses and legal fees in dealing with a DWI arrest.
In a January 5 written statement, Barron-Flores told investigators the money was obtained through sales of cocaine.
Barron-Flores was taken into custody and booked into the Hunt County Jail on one count money laundering of between $20,000 and $100,000 and later released on $25,000 bond.
Barron-Flores has not yet been indicted in connection with the case.