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Border agents seize nearly 2 tons of narcotics, worth $13 million, in a weekend

Posted at 2:58 PM, Jun 18, 2019
and last updated 2019-06-18 17:58:34-04

SAN DIEGO (KGTV) — Border officials seized nearly two tons of drugs valued at millions of dollars at San Diego and Imperial Valley ports of entry last weekend.

Between June 14 and June 16, Customs and Border Protection says more than 2,638 pounds of marijuana, 1093 pounds of methamphetamine, and five pounds of heroin were seized after being discovered inside doors, flooring, and other areas of vehicles and a tractor-trailer.

In one instance, agents at the Calexico Port of Entry stopped a 34-year-old driver on Friday and referred the driver to a secondary inspection. There, canine agents made a positive detection and the port's imaging system discovered anomalies inside the vehicles flooring.

Agents uncovered 40 packages of methamphetamine hidden in the vehicle.

The same day, a tractor-trailer was stopped at the Otay Mesa Port of Entry, arriving from Mexico with a shipment listed as "watermelons and cactus." An officer referred the driver to a secondary inspection, where a canine officer alerted agents to a positive detection in pallets of watermelons.

Agents found 311 packages of marijuana, worth an estimated $10,557,000, intermixed with the fruit.

During another incident on June 16, agents at the San Ysidro Port of Entry stopped a 35-year-old man where a secondary inspection revealed 86 packages of methamphetamine, with a street value of $273,700.

All drivers were turned over to Homeland Security agents for processing and all vehicles and narcotics were seized by CBP.