Thread: 3 tons of pot, 51 entrants seized; heart victim aided

3 tons of pot, 51 entrants seized; heart victim aided
By Brady McCombs
ARIZONA DAILY STAR
Border officers on Monday and Tuesday seized more than 3 tons of drugs in six incidents, helped rescue a woman who was having a heart attack and found 51 illegal immigrants in a Nogales stash house.
Drug seizures
The largest of the six seizures occurred Monday at 2:45 p.m. at the Mariposa port of entry in Nogales when U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers found 3,418 pounds of marijuana inside a tractor-trailer rig carrying cucumbers, said Brian Levin, Customs and Border Protection spokesman.
With the help of a drug-sniffing dog, officers searched the boxes of cucumbers and found 144 bundles, Levin said. The rig was from the Mexican state of Sinaloa and headed to California.
The driver was not arrested.
It comes on the heels of large seizure April 16 when officers found 1,340 pounds of marijuana hidden in tomato boxes in the back of a rig also from Sinaloa headed to California, Levin said.
The other five marijuana seizures were made by U.S. Border Patrol agents between the ports of entry along Arizona's stretch of the U.S.-Mexican border.
On 6 a.m. Tuesday at the Interstate 19 checkpoint north of Tubac, Border Patrol agents discovered 35 bundles of marijuana in the back of a Chevrolet box truck, said Rob Daniels, Border Patrol Tucson Sector spokesman. The bundles, inside a hidden compartment, weighed a total of 900 pounds.
The driver, a 20-year-old man from Nogales, Sonora, was arrested and turned over to the Drug Enforcement Administration. The truck and marijuana were also handed over to that agency, Daniels said.
The most dangerous of the seizures took place Tuesday at about 1:30 a.m., in the desert west of Interstate 19 and one mile north of Arivaca Road, when four Border Patrol agents encountered seven drug smugglers, Daniels said.
When they saw the agents, the smugglers dropped their loads and fled. As the agents began taking control of the area, a shot was fired in their direction, likely from one of the smugglers, Daniels said. Agents took cover and called for backup.
No one was hit.
More agents arrived soon, and they launched a search of the area with help from a Customs and Border Protection helicopter, but they didn't find the smugglers. They did find several 9 mm shell casings in the area, he said. The seven bundles of marijuana left behind weighed a total of 300 pounds.
The other three seizures by Border Patrol agents occurred on Monday.
The first triggered a lockdown of the Sopori Elementary School in Amado Monday morning, Daniels said. Agents on horses followed footprints that led to a house close to the school. Agents suspected they were following drug smugglers.
They contacted the school principal and decided to put students on lockdown in case the drug runners had weapons.
Agents found nine people inside the house and 200 pounds of marijuana. They didn't find any guns. The school shortly returned to normal operations after, Daniels said.
At about 5:30 p.m., agents found 450 pounds of marijuana inside an abandoned Ford F-350 truck on the northern part of the Tohono O'odham Reservation north of the village of North Komelik, Daniels said. They also found a loaded .38-caliber pistol in the truck's glove box.
About 9 p.m. near the village of Cowlic on the reservation, agents seized 825 pounds of marijuana that had been left behind by smugglers who were transporting the drugs on horseback, Daniels said.
Earlier that evening, agents had spotted the tracks of six horses and caught up with them about one mile west of Cowlic. The drug runners had begun to unload the bundles, but when the Border Patrol agents identified themselves, they got back on the horses and rode away. They left behind 24 bundles, and agents found found 12 more after searching nearby.
The combined total of nearly 6,100 pounds of marijuana seized in the six incidents has an estimated value of $3.5 million, according to the National Drug Intelligence Center.
Rescue
At about 10:45 p.m. Monday, a woman in Sasabe, Sonora, contacted the Border Patrol and said her mother was unconscious and unresponsive. She said she would take her to the Sasabe port of entry.
At about 11 p.m., the two U.S. citizens arrived at the port, which closes each night at 8.
Border Patrol paramedics arrived and determined the older woman was probably suffering a heart attack. They decided to let her cross because of the emergency, and she was flown by helicopter to St. Mary's Hospital in Tucson.
Her condition was unknown Tuesday afternoon, Daniels said.
Stash house
Border Patrol agents found the stash house Tuesday morning in Nogales.
Agents went to a house on Portrero Avenue and found 51 illegal immigrants inside. All 51 were from Mexico, with 41 men, seven women and three unaccompanied juveniles.
A U.S. citizen and two illegal immigrants were identified as smugglers and will be charged with human smuggling, an agency release said.
Since the beginning of fiscal 2008, Oct. 1, agents in the Nogales Station have found 53 stash houses and arrested 734 illegal immigrants from those residences.
http://www.azstarnet.com/sn/printDS/236778

Tax payers getting there moneys worth...Good work BP