Anonymous Tip Helps Border Patrol Nab Suspected Marijuana Smugglers

Reported by: KPSP Local 2 News
Published: 3:13 pm
Updated: 3:18 pm

Border Patrol agents have arrested some people suspected of smuggling nearly $100,000 worth of marijuana into the country and using a U.S. citizen to drive the drugs through border checkpoints.

Three people-- two Mexican nationals and one U.S. man -- were arrested when agents found more than 100 pounds of marijuana bundled up inside a car on Saturday, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection Spokesman Jonathan Creiglow.

Creiglow said agents got word of the drug smuggling car via an anonymous caller who said they had seen people "loading bundles of suspected narcotics into a gold sedan" on Highway 98, in Calexico.

The vehicle description was sent out to agents, who spotted a matching car soon thereafter, the spokesman said.

"A vehicle stop was conducted and further investigation resulted in the discovery of two large bundles of marijuana valued at approximately $81,000," Creiglow said.

Authorities then searched the area where the caller had spotted people, and found two men trying to run back into Mexico. Border Patrol believes those two were helping the American get drugs into the States.

"They are suspected of transporting the bundles into the U.S. from Mexico afoot and loading the narcotics into the gold sedan that agents had stopped," Creiglow said.

The American man, drugs and car were turned over to the Imperial County Sheriff's Department. The two Mexican nationals were being held by Border Patrol, pending federal prosecution, according to Creiglow.

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