Tijuana.- A man who raced inside a house in an eastside neighborhood, fleeing police, led them to largest drug seizure state police have had in the last four years, the department's director said Saturday.

The director, Osiel Arturo García, said that state preventive police agents confiscated 468.6 pounds of crystal methamphetamine and 211 pounds of cocaine, which combined had an estimated street value of $18.3 million.

He said three people were detained, two of them minors, and a man he identified as Pablo Sergio Lara, 39.

According to García, his agency received an anonymous tip that an armed person was apparently distributing drugs.

Police agents arrived around 10 a.m. Saturday in the Vista Alamar neighborhood and located the armed suspect, who ran inside a house, with police in pursuit.

Inside the garage, they found dozens of packages of drugs on the floor, García said.

"It's not only the largest seizure our department has had this year, but in the four year of the current administration," García said, referring to the government led by Gov. Jose Guadalupe Osuna Millán.

During an operation in April, also the result of anonymous crime tip, state police confiscated around 1,630 pounds of marijuana in Mexicali, which had an estimated street value of $2.4 million.

The largest seizure made this year by the Mexican army and local police came in March, when they found 12,826 pounds of marijuana being stored at a warehouse eastern Tijuana. That operation also was the result of an anonymous tip.

Omar.millan@sandiegored.com