Thread: Agents seize pot, 68 crossers in separate incidents

Agents seize pot, 68 crossers in separate incidents


By Brady McCombs
Arizona Daily Star
Tucson, Arizona

U.S. Border Patrol agents seized nearly 2 tons of marijuana in four separate incidents Monday and Tuesday along Arizona's stretch of U.S.-Mexico border.

Agents also apprehended a group of 68 illegal border crossers late Tuesday night west of Douglas.

The largest seizure occurred at the Interstate 19 checkpoint north of Tubac early Tuesday. At 12:08 a.m., a drug-sniffing dog detected an odor coming from a tractor-trailer, and agents pulled it over for further inspection, said Rob Daniels, Border Patrol Tucson Sector spokesman.
Agents discovered 57 bundles of marijuana hidden among pallets of zucchini and squash in the trailer, he said. The marijuana, which weighed 1,231 pounds, and the driver, a 47-year-old U.S. citizen with a criminal record, were turned over to the Drug Enforcement Administration.

The second-largest of the four seizures occurred Monday at 2 a.m. near the Empire-Cienega Resource Conservation Area, north of Sonoita and east of Arizona 83, Daniels said. A crew aboard a Customs and Border Protection Air and Marine helicopter spotted a truck that agents had seen coming north from the border. As the helicopter closed in, the driver drove through a fence and he and a passenger fled by foot, Daniels said.
A member of the Border Patrol's search, rescue and trauma team, called Borstar, jumped out of the helicopter and ran the two down. Both men arrested were Mexicans illegally in the U.S. Agents found 55 bundles of marijuana weighing 1,216 pounds inside the truck.

The other two drug seizures occurred on Monday.
At 3 a.m. southeast of Arivaca near Arivaca Ranch Road and Cedar Creek Road, agents approached a group of drug smugglers on horseback that had been spotted by an agent operating a scope out of the back of his truck, Daniels said. When agents came close, the horses spooked and the riders fled, leaving behind their packs of marijuana, a horse and two donkeys.

Agents recovered 41 bricks of marijuana weighing 980 pounds and took the horse and donkeys to the Tucson station's horse patrol unit.
At 7:15 p.m. Monday, about 10 miles north of the border on the Tohono O'odham Reservation, agents spotted a suspicious SUV driving north on Federal Route 19, Daniels said. Agents tried to stop the vehicle, but the driver refused to stop, instead driving into a ditch along the road and fleeing on foot into the desert.

Agents were unable to capture him but found 21 bundles of marijuana weighing 566 pounds inside the SUV.

From Oct. 1 through Jan. 31, agents seized more than 341,000 pounds of marijuana.

Meanwhile, on Tuesday night before 8 p.m., a camera operator spotted a large group of people crossing the border about 10 miles west of Douglas in the Paul Spur area, Daniels said. Agents on all-terrain vehicles went to the area and apprehended 68 illegal border crossers, he said.
The group included 47 men, 14 women and seven children. All but one, a Honduran woman, were from Mexico, he said.

Contact reporter Brady McCombs at 573-4213 or bmccombs@azstarnet.com.

http://www.azstarnet.com/sn/border/281893.php

The headline says "crossers". I thought that we were being invaded by cross dressers.