Record AZ Pot Seizures
Nov 3, 2007

Nearly half of confiscations along the Mexican line take place in Border Patrol's Tucson Sector
By Brady McCombs • Arizona Daily Star

NOGALES, Ariz. — The Mexican woman behind the wheel of the white Dodge Intrepid looks like any one of the thousands of legal border crossers who come through the Mariposa Port of Entry in Nogales.
It's Friday afternoon and her 12-year-old daughter and 11-year-old son are in the back seat dressed in their school uniforms with backpacks at their feet. The 30-year-old seemed to be a mom on her way to shop in Nogales, Ariz., after picking up her kids at school.
But, hidden behind the back seat, U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers found four packages of marijuana wrapped in double plastic.
After a 90-minute search of the vehicle, they found 13 more bundles of pot inside the gas tank.
The 17 packages weighed a total of 57 pounds — a ho-hum bust along Arizona's border, which has become ground zero for marijuana smuggling.
In fiscal year 2007:
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