TIJUANA – A man detained on the east side at dawn on Sunday led authorities to an arsenal that included eight grenades, the municipal police department announced.

State Preventive Police agents detained José María Soltero Ochoa, 36, as a result of intelligence the department had gathered.

The agents stopped Soltero Ochoa on Azteca Street in the Mariano Matamoros neighborhood, according to the announcement from the public safety department.

He allegedly dropped two wooden boxes he was carrying and ran inside an apartment. Officers followed him inside and detained him, the department said.

Agents found in a pants pocket 3.5 ounces of crystal methamphetamine. An estimated 200 doses of the drug were inside the boxes that were dropped.

Agents found inside the apartment a 12-gage shotgun and 31 cartridges for it, a 7.62 x 39 mm AK-47 and four magazines, three fragmentation grenades and five 40 mm grenades.

They also found one grenade belt, two black vests, one bullet-proof vest, 409 balloons with crystal meth, three packages with nearly 84 grams of crystal meth and one package with .25 ounce of marijuana.

Omar.millan@sandiegored.com