184 Pounds of Heroin, Coke, Meth and Marijuana
January 27, 2017
From Sunday, December 11 to Friday, December 16, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) seized a combined 184 pounds of drugs with a total estimated value of approximately $923,000.
On December 11, CBP officers accompanied by a drug-detection dog searched a Ford van at the Nogales Mariposa Port of Entry and found six pounds of heroin and five pounds of methamphetamine. The drugs had a combined value of approximately $120,000. The driver of the van was a 44-year-old Mexican national from Puerto Peñasco (also known as Rocky Point), Sonora, Mexico.
There were two Nogales international border drug busts at approximately the same time on the following day, Monday, December 12.
A 30-year-old Mexican national who was living legally in Nogales, Arizona was stopped at the Nogales DeConcini Port of Entry, where a team of CBP officers and a drug-sniffing canine discovered more than 70 pounds of methamphetamine in his Hyundai SUV. The meth was worth an estimated $213,000.
At approximately the same time farther west along the border at the Nogales Mariposa Port of Entry, CBP officials searching an Acura SUV located three pounds of heroin and eight pounds of methamphetamine, with a combined value of more than $76,000. The Acura was driven by a 24-year-old Mexican woman from Nogales, Sonora, Mexico.
The following Friday, December 16, U.S. Customs officials intercepted two drug shipments with a total value of more than $500,000 at the Nogales Mariposa Port of Entry.
The first drug seizure happened during the search of a Cadillac sedan whose driver was a 44-year-old woman from Nogales, Sonora, Mexico. CBP officers found a combined total of more than 40 pounds of heroin, cocaine and marijuana that had been hidden in the Cadillac’s rocker panels. The drugs were estimated to have a combined value of $488,000.
The second Friday bust at the Mariposa Port involved a 20-year-old Mexican national from Magdalena de Kino, Sonora, who was attempting to cross the Nogales international border with 52 pounds of marijuana in the gas tank of his Ford SUV. The pot was valued at $26,000.
All drugs and vehicles were seized by Customs and Border Protection, and the drivers of the vehicles were apprehended and sent to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Homeland Investigations unit for processing.
Source: U.S. Customs and Border Protection
