A Mexican man who was arrested after hundreds of pounds of meth were located in a blackberry truck in Gainesville last month is now facing federal drug charges.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Georgia announced Wednesday afternoon, December 3, that Gerardo Solorio-Alvarado, age 44, was indicted on December 2 on charges of conspiracy and possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine.
Solorio-Alvarado, who was reportedly in the U.S. illegally, was arrested by Hall County authorities and the Federal Bureau of Investigation on November 21, after he was found to have been the driver of a refrigerated blackberry truck that contained more than 600 pounds of meth. The street value of the drugs was estimated at $22.5 million by authorities.
The Attorney’s Office said Wednesday that Solorio-Alvarado was a repeat offender, having a prior federal conviction for possession with intent to distribute meth that led to him serving 17 years in prison. He was also on probation at the time of his November arrest for a 2024 possession of meth conviction in Hall County.
Solorio-Alvarado was one of two people indicted on December 2. The other was Nelson Enrique Sorto, who was arrested that same day, driving a similar truck containing meth in Atlanta. Authorities say the cases are believed to have been connected.
“Law enforcement surveilled a cold storage warehouse in Fulton County, Georgia, and observed three refrigerated box trucks parked outside. Agents followed one of the trucks as it traveled in tandem with a SUV, driven by Sorto, to a residence in southeast Atlanta,” the statement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office said. “At the same time, another team of federal agents and sheriff’s deputies followed a second box truck from the cold storage facility to a gas station in Gainesville. Solorio-Alvarado arrived, picked up the box truck, and departed the gas station.”
The truck was later found and searched by authorities, who found the meth inside. The total contents of the two trucks were nearly 1,600 pounds of meth.
“These repeat offenders, including an illegal alien, allegedly attempted to conceal and traffic an enormous quantity of deadly methamphetamine in our community,” U.S. Attorney Theodore S. Hertzgerg said. “We are thankful for the quick action of our federal, state, and local law enforcement partners who apprehended these individuals and stopped nearly 1,600 pounds of methamphetamine from hitting the streets.”
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