Major Seizures of Cocaine, Heroin and Meth
January 23, 2017
Two middle-aged Mexican nationals were arrested in separate attempts to smuggle hard drugs across the Nogales international border on Saturday, January 21, as Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers and canines prevented large quantities of cocaine, methamphetamine and heroin with a combined value of $1,686,000 from getting to the streets of the United States.
The first drug seizure occurred at the Nogales Mariposa Port of Entry, and was a whopper. A 50-year-old woman from Culiacan, Sonora, Mexico driving a Hyundai SUV entered the Nogales Mariposa Port of Entry, where she ran into some problems.
CBP officials accompanied by a specially trained drug-detection canine located 88 pounds of heroin, valued at $1.5 million, and eight pounds of cocaine, with a value in excess of $90,000, that had been hidden in her vehicle.
The heroin bust was the second-largest heroin seizure in the history of the Tucson Field Office; the largest was a 101-pound heroin interdiction made in October 2000 at the San Luis Port of Entry.
Not long after the woman from Sinaloa was arrested, another team of CBP officers and a canine at the Nogales DeConcini Port of Entry found more than 30 pounds of methamphetamine that had been stashed in a Ford SUV. The vehicle was driven by a 56-year-old man, a resident alien who was living in Willcox, Arizona.
Both vehicles and all of the drugs were seized, and the two alleged Nogales international drug smugglers were apprehended and sent to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations unit.
Source: U.S. Customs and Border Protection
