Two Houston men are headed to federal prison after a crystal meth case that started with an undercover buy and ended with agents hauling away roughly 133 kilograms of drugs. U.S. District Judge Andrew S. Hanen handed each man a 162-month sentence, followed by five years of supervised release, in an announcement made March 23, 2026, after a two-day trial and a jury deliberation that wrapped up in under an hour.
According to a press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Texas, jurors found Edgar Prudencio Ruiz, 24, and Damian Lee Gutierrez, 24, guilty on Nov. 18, 2025. Judge Hanen later imposed identical 162-month prison terms plus five years of supervised release for each man. Prosecutors told the court the meth had been imported from Mexico and that Ruiz and Gutierrez had talked price and delivery details with what they believed was a buyer. The U.S. Attorney’s Office also pushed the news out on X (formerly Twitter).
Houston residents get over 13 years following discovery of over 130 kilos of crystal meth. https://x.com/i/status/2036169421425623494
– U.S. Attorney SDTX (@USAO_SDTX) March 23, 2026
How investigators uncovered the haul
Trial testimony traced the case back to June 17, 2025, when an undercover officer met the men for a deal. Prosecutors said Ruiz and Gutierrez delivered five kilograms of meth in that buy. Not long after, a traffic stop and a K-9 alert led agents to a box inside a Toyota Tacoma that held multiple gallon-sized bags of suspected meth…