Chun Pacheco, 19, was arrested on May 13 by Mexican authorities in the city of Nuevo Vallarta after the FBI learned that he was working with his father in a Los Angeles cell phone store, said FBI Director James Comey.

In May 2016, an associate of Pacheco (known as “Barry”) was charged in Puerto Vallarta with “conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine by means of the production and retail sale of controlled substances.” The associate had previously faced drug charges in his native Venezuela.

In 2015, the two men were arrested as they attempted to bring methamphetamine across the border in Santa Teresa, San Luis Potosí, the FBI said. Pacheco’s vehicle was stopped when a border patrol officer in the U.S. spotted a suspicious item inside of it, Comey said.

After an undercover investigation, agents arrested Pacheco at the border. He has been detained since then at several immigration detention centers in Virginia, Comey said.

FBI agents took a DNA sample from Pacheco and also got his father to turn over evidence linking Barry and a previous associate to drug sales. After that arrest, Barry went into hiding, hiding for nearly a week in Mexico, and even returned to the United States, Comey said.

One of the items in Pacheco’s vehicle in Puerto Vallarta in September was a scale manufactured in the U.S. with a model number that matched parts of a piece that was found in a New York store where Barry was once employed, Comey said. A similar scale was also discovered in a San Diego, California shop that Barry worked at.

“We believe Barry was one of the people who got the scale into Mexico,” Comey said.

Pacheco had previously contacted people in California seeking assistance with methamphetamine, the FBI said. He also tried to lure men to an apartment in Los Angeles where he claimed to work and used the rental properties as storage and warehouses, the FBI said.

“We hope in these arrests we can discourage people like Barry from trying to traffic this sort of substance into this country,” Comey said.