Mexican teenager dies from drinking liquid meth at US border crossing - trying to prove to officials it was just apple juice

  • Mexican high school student Cruz Marcelino Velazquez Acevedo was stopped as he crossed the border to San Diego in November
  • He offered to take a 'big sip' as officials asked him about bottles of liquid
  • But he started screaming, 'My heart! My heart!' and later died
  • The liquid was determined to be pure liquid methamphetamine

By Daily Mail Reporter and Associated Press Reporter

PUBLISHED: 11:15 EST, 16 January 2014 | UPDATED: 12:58 EST, 16 January 2014

A Mexican teenager died from drinking highly concentrated liquid meth at a border crossing after he tried to persuade inspectors that it was only apple juice, according to an an autopsy report.

Cruz Marcelino Velazquez, 16, volunteered to take 'a big sip' of the liquid at the San Ysidro port of entry in San Diego on November 18, the report said.

But when he was handcuffed and taken to a security office, he began screaming in pain and shouted about 'chemicals' before yelling, 'My heart! My heart!' in Spanish.

Velazquez, a high school student from Tijuana, died hours later at a hospital in California from acute methamphetamine intoxication.

Killed: Cruz Marcelino Velazquez, 16, died in November after offering to take a 'big sip' of the liquid meth he was carrying in bottles across the Mexican border, in an attempt to prove it was juice

Killed: Cruz Marcelino Velazquez, 16, died in November after offering to take a 'big sip' of the liquid meth he was carrying in bottles across the Mexican border, in an attempt to prove it was juice

The San Diego County Medical Examiner's report gives no indication if inspectors asked him to drink the liquid and doesn't say if they had an opportunity to stop him when he volunteered.

Velazquez was walking in a pedestrian lane at the crossing when an inspector became suspicious of the teenager, who was carrying two bottles and acting nervously.

 

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The inspector poured a capful of liquid on a counter because he thought it would immediately crystallize if it was methamphetamine, according to the autopsy report.

The inspector smelled fruit and returned the boy's two bottles after the liquid didn't crystallize.

Inspectors also raised questions about whether Velazquez had been working in the U.S., which would violate terms of his visitor's visa, and ordered him to a separate area, the report said.

Liquid: The autopsy found he died from acute methamphetamine intoxication (file picture)

Liquid: The autopsy found he died from acute methamphetamine intoxication (file picture)

After he was asked again about the bottles, he drank the liquid, claiming it was juice.

Acevedo was taken to the nearby Sharp Chula Vista Medical Center, where he died that evening.

The liquid in both bottles later tested positive for methamphetamine and the capful that the inspector poured on the counter eventually crystallized.

The inspector who poured the capful 'was educated by his supervisor that this was not a proper or safe test for detecting methamphetamine', the report says.

Jackie Wasiluk, a spokeswoman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the agency that oversees ports of entry, had no immediate comment on the findings

San Ysidro, the nation's busiest border crossing, has emerged as a major corridor for smuggling meth in the past five years as Mexico's Sinaloa cartel has increased its presence in the area.

Scene: Traffic and pedestrians are pictured at the San Ysidro border crossing, the world's busiest

Scene: Traffic and pedestrians are pictured at the San Ysidro border crossing, the world's busiest

To avoid detection, crystal methamphetamine is dissolved in water and disguised in juice bottles, windshield wiper fluid containers and gas tanks. It is later converted back to crystals.

Children are caught with it several times a week at San Diego crossings, an 'alarming increase,' Joe Garcia, assistant special agent in charge of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement investigations in San Diego, said last year. They are typically paid $50 to $200 a trip.

Acevedo had no previous criminal record.

‘He was an average student, he had no discipline problems, he regularly attended class,’ María Guadalupe Estrella, principal at his school, Cobach Siglo XXI, told the San Diego Union-Tribune.

Comments (7)

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Don't want to die? Don't attempt to smuggle illegal drugs into our country! Simples.

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dude ............... really?

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Say No to Drugs

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I doubt it. Probably they made him drink

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Adios, mi amigo!

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Whenever I run into this situation I just tell the guards it's my catheter bag and they say "Go ahead."

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That's sad. He was probably offered a lot of money and teens don't have the capacity to think so much into consequences. I wish they'd find out who was paying him to be a drug mule and give them the death penalty.

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