A routine traffic stop in Jarrell by a Williamson County Sheriff’s deputy Wednesday afternoon turned out to be anything but.
William Joseph Silva, 27, a U.S. citizen who resides in Matamoros, Mexico, was arrested after the traffic stop and charged with possession of a controlled substance, a first-degree felony.
An alert deputy driving northbound on I-35 near the 275-mile marker in Jarrell was in the middle lane and noticed that the car behind him driven by Silva would not go around him.
“The vehicle eventually passes him. The driver goes into another lane of traffic forces another driver off the road,” said Sergeant John Foster with the Williamson County Sheriff’s Department.
Foster says that once Silva pulled over, he gave deputies consent to search his car.
A drug dog later discovered 42-pounds of Methamphetamine hidden inside of Silva’s Volkswagen Passat.
Sgt. Foster says the estimated street value of the meth is $1.7 million, making it the largest drug bust of its kind in Williamson County history.
“Someone that was expecting $1.7 million worth of drugs is not going to get them and that's good. That's good for everybody,” added Foster.
If convicted, Silva could be facing anywhere from 15-years to life in prison.
The massive drug bust does not come as a surprise to Angela Vickrey, a chemical dependency counselor at the Austin Recovery Center in North Austin.
“It's a pretty good sliver of our population that's addicted to meth,” said Vickery who believes that 10-percent of the population is addicted to the drug.
The Austin Recovery Center, a non-profit has made it affordable for people addicted to meth to get treatment. In fact, the drug treatment facility has beds set aside just for meth addicts. For more information on how to get help, visit their website.
