Two vehicular, two pedestrian attempts totaling $655k
October 21, 2016
Four individuals were apprehended in as many drug smuggling attempts at Nogales international ports of entry on Tuesday, October 18 and Wednesday, October 19, 2016. The total value of drugs seized during the two days was estimated to be approximately $655,000.
October 18
Belly Enhancement with $57k in Cocaine
A 50-year-old Mexican woman was attempting to cross the Nogales international border in a pedestrian lane at the DeConcini Port of Entry attracted the attention of a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) drug-detection dog.
The canine alerted CBP officers, who then discovered that the woman’s midsection had been enlarged by packages of cocaine taped to her body. The coke had a value of $57,000.
October 19
There were three more Nogales drug busts on Wednesday, all at the DeConcini Port of Entry.
The first occurred that morning, when a 31-year-old man from Nogales, Mexico driving a Nissan sedan was stopped at the border crossing. There, CBP officers accompanied by a CBP canine located quantities of heroin, methamphetamine and cocaine that had been hidden in the vehicle. The combined haul of the hard drugs was valued at $164,000.
Then came the big drug seizure of the day, after a 22-year-old Mexican man driving a Jeep SUV attempted to cross from Mexico into Nogales, Arizona. CBP officers and their drug-sniffing canine located almost 32 pounds of cocaine and nearly three pounds of heroin hidden in the Jeep. The drugs had a combined value of more than $403,000.
And the final Wednesday Nogales border drug bust occurred in the DeConcini pedestrian crossing area, where a 24-year-old Tucson man who was attempting to walk across the border from Mexico into the United States was referred to a secondary inspection area. There, CBP officials found a 1.24 kilos (about 2.7 pounds) of cocaine hidden in his groin area. The value of the coke was approximately $31,000.
Vehicles and drugs were seized, and the suspected Nogales drug smugglers were referred to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations unit.
Source: U.S. Customs and Border Protection
