Meth concealed in cucumbers leads to prison sentences in Gainesville

GAINESVILLE, Ga. - Two men will serve 15 years in federal prison after law enforcement uncovered more than 700 pounds of methamphetamine hidden inside a cucumber shipment outside a Gainesville warehouse, federal officials announced. 

What we know:

Federal agents with the Drug Enforcement Administration were watching a tractor-trailer parked outside a Gainesville warehouse on June 30, 2025, after suspecting it held a massive drug shipment. 

Officers spotted Andres Jasso, Jr., 39, of Brookhaven, and Rufino Pineda-Perez, 61, sitting in a sedan next to the truck and immediately arrested them.

Inside the trailer, investigators discovered 20 pallets of cucumber boxes containing thousands of individually wrapped packages of methamphetamine weighing over 700 pounds. 

Authorities said co-conspirators tasked Jasso and Pineda-Perez with unloading the crates and separating the drugs from the produce. 

On March 11, both men pleaded guilty to conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute methamphetamine. 

Jasso was sentenced on July 17 to 15 years in prison followed by 10 years of supervised release, while a judge handed Pineda-Perez the same 15-year sentence.

Dig deeper:

Court records reveal Pineda-Perez, a Mexican citizen with no legal status in the U.S., is a twice-convicted and twice-deported felon. 

He was deported in 2001 following an Arizona conviction for transporting marijuana, re-entered illegally and was caught in March 2014 transporting nearly a kilogram of cocaine near Atlanta. 

After serving a six-and-a-half-year sentence handed down in August 2015, he was deported a second time before returning to participate in the Gainesville operation. 

Pineda-Perez also pleaded guilty to illegal reentry by a previously removed alien. 

What we don't know:

Officials have not identified the co-conspirators who directed the men to unload the truck.