Thread: Record Otay pot bust: 15 tons, $19 Million value

Record Otay pot bust: 15 tons, $19M value

Federal officials said it was second largest ever at a U.S. border crossing

By Susan Shroder 5:08 P.M.FEB. 27, 2015


The trailer was stacked with nearly 1,300 packages of marijuana. / U.S. Customs and Border Protection

OTAY MESA — Federal officials said more than 15 tons of marijuana with an estimated street value of nearly $19 million was found in a tractor-trailer Thursday night at the Otay Mesa Port of Entry in the largest seizure ever at the port and the second largest ever at a border crossing nationwide.

The driver, a 46-year-old Mexican citizen, stopped the truck for inspection about 6 p.m. The shipment was labeled as mattresses and cushions.

During an X-ray examination, U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers “identified an anomaly” and sent the truck to a dock for further examination, CBP spokeswoman Jackie Wasiluk said in a statement.

When the door of the trailer was opened, officers saw stacks of plastic-wrapped packages.

“Almost the entire trailer was filled with those packages from floor to ceiling, front to back, although there were a few mattresses stacked along the wall at the opposite end of the trailer from the doors,” Wasiluk said.

Nearly 1,300 packages were inside. They weighed a total of nearly 32,000 pounds.

The driver was arrested and booked into the federal Metropolitan Correctional Center in downtown San Diego. He had a valid border crossing card, Wasiluk said.

The largest seizure ever at a border crossing in the country occurred at the Calexico East Port of Entry in Imperial County in 2013, when 35,265 pounds of marijuana was seized, Wasiluk said. The previous largest seizure at the Otay Mesa port, in 2003, was 19,999 pounds of marijuana.

“I am extremely proud of the work my officers do. Officers never give up their enforcement posture and demonstrate each and every day that they remain guardians of our nation,” Otay Mesa Cargo Port Director Rosa Hernandez said in the statement.

http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2015/...ns-19-million/

I hope that the driver will be charged with a felony and do an appropriate amount of jail and then barred from entering the US for 10 years. That should make him old enough to stop this type of work. He is lucky, had I been the BP of officer, well, ya'll know, it seems to be the wild west again and sometimes justice is swift. (sarcasm)

Border opens to Mexican trucks

Measure complies with NAFTA

By Sandra Dibble8:43 P.M.JAN. 12, 2015

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Short-haul truckers wait to cross from Tijuana to San Diego at Otay Mesa. The United States is preparing to open the border to long-haul Mexican truckers, all
owing those who qualify to make deliveries beyond the border commercial zone. File photo. — Peggy Peattie

• 
  
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• The United States is preparing to open the border to Mexican long-haul truckers, allowing those who qualify for permits to make direct deliveries from Mexico to U.S. destinations — a measure stipulated more than two decades ago under the North American Free Trade Agreement.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration is expected to publish a formal announcement this week inviting Mexican companies to apply.

Supporters in United States and Mexico are praising the move as an important step toward the economic integration of the two countries and Canada that was envisioned at NAFTA’s signing in 1994.

Implementation of a permanent program for Mexican truckers also removes the threat that Mexico would reinstate more than $2 billion annually in retaliatory tariffs on U.S. products.

The announcement by the U.S. Department of Transportation, which oversees the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, follows a three-year pilot program designed to test the safety of Mexican trucking companies driving on U.S. highways.

The study, submitted to Congress on Friday showed that “Mexican carriers demonstrate a level of safety at least as high as their American and Canadian counterparts,” Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said in a written statement.

Longtime NAFTA critics such as the Teamsters Union have been quick to disagree. Jim Hoffa, the group’s general president said in a statement that “allowing untested, Mexican trucks to travel our highways is a mistake of the highest order and it’s the driving public that will be put at risk by the DOT’s rash decision.”

But Luis de la Calle, an economist who served on Mexico’s NAFTA negotiating team, said the announcement was long overdue: “After many years of the U.S. preaching rule of law, it is willing to comply with international obligations.”

Chris Wilson, a senior associate at the Mexico Institute of the Wilson Center in Washington, D.C., said the announcement “will give certainty to Mexican trucking companies, thereby encouraging them to make investments in their fleet and drivers that would allow them to meet U.S. regulatory standards.”

Alfonso Esquer, whose family owns two long-haul trucking companies in San Diego and Baja California, believes Mexican truckers will respond to the U.S. invitation.

“You’re talking to one of the guys that’s going to be applying tomorrow,” he said Monday, adding that he expects other Mexican companies to follow suit, “more so the well-established companies, not the people trying to save a quarter here and there.”

Still, few believe the new policy is going to immediately bring large numbers of Mexican trucks to U.S. highways.

“It’s more of an evolutionary than a revolutionary process,” said Martin Rojas, vice president for security and operations at the American Trucking Associations, which has supported NAFTA.

A key impediment to seamless cross-border trucking remains congestion at the border, Rojas said. Due to lengthy waits to cross, long-haul trucking companies are unwilling to send expensive late-model trucks to the border and have them spend hours idling in line. Rojas expects that the current system of short-haul truckers who specialize in the delivery of goods within a narrow border commercial zone to continue until improved border crossing efficiencies are reached.

http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2015/...e-implemented/

Looks like we can expect more of the same in the future. No telling how many of these trucks have already crossed the border undetected since the can now haul loads throughout the U.S.

Originally Posted by kevinssdad

I hope that the driver will be charged with a felony and do an appropriate amount of jail and then barred from entering the US for 10 years. That should make him old enough to stop this type of work. He is lucky, had I been the BP of officer, well, ya'll know, it seems to be the wild west again and sometimes justice is swift. (sarcasm)

You're being gentle in your "hope." I expect him to get deported with a lifetime ban from reentry following a 10-20 year stint in the federal pen

http://www.alipac.us/f12/c-b-p-seize...cement-317906/

www.cbp.gov

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Drive-through Scanners


The Z Portal vehicle screening system, also made by AS&E, installed at the San Ysidro border crossing near San Diego, Calif. (Photo courtesy of Customs and Border Protection)

Customs and Border Protection is installing 35 drive-through X-ray portals according to a company report posted on the government's website.

A test system was installed at the San Ysidro border crossing in San Diego and portals will soon be deployed in El Paso and Laredo, Texas, and elsewhere on the Southwest border, according to contract documents obtained by the privacy group EPIC.

The portals, made by AS&E, can scan cars, trucks and buses from the top and sides as their drivers pass through at 3 mph.

The scanners' X-rays have to penetrate metal and glass. But according to Customs and the company, the radiation dose is equivalent to an airport body scan.

The dose is low because Customs officers do not need as high a resolution to see bulk explosives or drugs as a TSA screener would need to see a tiny detonator or a razor blade, said Rez, the Arizona State physicist. He estimated the dose by analyzing the images with a computer program.

The company says the portal is safe for everyday use. But Burke, the Customs spokeswoman, said it won't be used on every driver crossing the border -- only those who raise suspicion and require additional inspection. Passengers will be allowed to opt out and have a Customs officer drive it through the portal for them.



The Z Backscatter Van, essentially a x-ray scanner on a truck, can scan while driving alongside a line of vehicles or while parked as they pass by. (Photo courtesy of the American Science & Engineering Inc.)

http://www.propublica.org/article/dr...for-security-s

http://www.alipac.us/f12/us-customs-...2014-a-317077/

http://www.alipac.us/f12/customs-off...nology-317917/