5 kilos of meth seized from FYI passenger

Posted at 09:14 PM on Tuesday, Sep. 13, 2011
By Jim Guy / The Fresno Bee

In what authorities say is a first at Fresno Yosemite International Airport, a Mexican man was arrested Sunday after trying to smuggle $121,000 of methamphetamine through customs in a massage table.

Francisco Carrillo-Beltran, 42, was caught by U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers after arriving from Guadalajara on a Volaris airline flight, said Ed Low, a spokesman for the agency in San Francisco. He was turned over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.

Low said the arrest was the first he knows of in the five-year history of international flights at the Fresno airport.

According to customs, Carrillo-Beltran arrived at FYI shortly before 11 p.m. and was directed to a routine secondary inspection.

An X-ray of the portable table, which Carrillo-Beltran was carrying as checked luggage, did not look right to inspectors, and during a follow-up inspection, the methamphetamine crystals were discovered in hollowed-out wooden legs of the table.

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"Smugglers attempt all types of creative concealment methods to sneak their deadly poison into the United States," said Richard Vigna, customs director of field operations in San Francisco. "This passenger took an enormous risk ... and now he faces very serious narcotics smuggling charges."

The reporter can be reached at jguy@fresnobee.com or (559) 441-6386.

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