Man eating Big Mac at Texas checkpoint was suspicious. Feds say he was smuggling meth
A man took his first bite of what appeared to be a McDonald’s Big Mac while at a Texas Border Patrol checkpoint — and at least one agent found that odd, according to federal authorities.
That’s because the nearest McDonald’s was more than 60 miles south of the Falfurrias Border Patrol Station.
“It was unusual that someone would wait until the exact moment they got to the checkpoint to start eating,” officials said in a criminal complaint.
The “hungry Texan” was found to be smuggling meth that July 2020 day, authorities say, and now he is headed to prison.
Yen-Tsun Huang, a Taiwan citizen who was living in Austin, was sentenced to 7.5 years in federal prison followed by three years of supervised release, according to a June 27 news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of Texas. He will also lose his U.S. resident status and likely be deported following his release.
This sentencing follows Huang’s guilty plea on Nov. 3.
His defense attorney declined to provide a comment to McClatchy News.
Huang was a passenger in a vehicle crossing through the checkpoint on July 4, 2020, according to the news release. That’s when officers noticed he “displayed suspicious behavior by eating a cheeseburger immediately upon arrival.”
While an agent was conducting an immigration inspection, a service canine detected narcotics, according to court records. The car was sent to a secondary inspection, and the three occupants were asked to step out.
Huang was patted down, and officials say an agent “felt a brick-like object strapped around each thigh.”
He would not answer what those bricks might be, so he was taken inside for a thorough search, records state. Huang was asked to pull his jeans down, and agents found three bundles taped to his legs.
The man admitted he had been hiding meth, authorities said. The three bundles later tested positive for 738.56 grams of meth.
The driver of the vehicle told authorities his roommate asked him to pick up Huang and the other passenger in McAllen, according to court records. He says he asked them if they had narcotics with them, and that they both said no.
The other passenger said she didn’t know Huang was carrying meth and reported she wasn’t involved in the operation.
Huang will be transferred to a U.S. Bureau of Prisons facility to serve his sentence.
The Falfurrias Border Patrol Station is about 75 miles north of McAllen and the Rio Grande River.
