$4 million pot bust at Nogales port



The 298 bales of marijuana seen here were seized on Wednesday by U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers at a local port of entry.


Posted: Friday, April 11, 2014 1:11 pm | Updated: 1:17 pm, Fri Apr 11, 2014.
Nogales International

Customs officers arrested a Nogales, Sonora man on Wednesday as he tried to smuggle more than 8,000 pounds of marijuana through a local port of entry.

The 298 bales of marijuana, valued at more than $4 million, were hidden inside a tractor-trailer driven by the 30-year-old man. Customs officers referred the vehicle for secondary inspection and a narcotics detection canine alerted to the pot, according to a press release from U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

The drugs and truck were seized and the driver was turned over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations.

The bust was the 12th million-dollar marijuana seizure in Santa Cruz County since the start of 2013, according to tallies kept by the NI. The others include:

• Feb. 1, 2014: U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers at the Mariposa commercial port found 145 marijuana bundles weighing nearly 2,800 pounds in a Volvo tractor-trailer loaded with wiring sets. The pot was valued at approximately $1.38 million.
• Jan. 22, 2014: CBP officers at the Mariposa port found 7,400 pounds of pot worth an estimated $3.7 million in a tractor-trailer hauling a load of tomatoes.
• Nov. 19, 2013: U.S. Border Patrol agents confiscated more than 2,300 pounds of marijuana from a pickup near Sonoita. The seizure was valued at almost $1.2 million.
• Nov. 13, 2013: CBP officers at the Mariposa Port of Entry found more than 20,000 pounds of marijuana hidden in a U.S.-bound tractor-trailer purported to be carrying Mexican squash. The pot, valued at more than $10 million was called the largest seizure of marijuana in Arizona history.
• June 24, 2013: Border Patrol agents at the Interstate 19 checkpoint discovered 88 bundles of marijuana concealed in a false wall inside a tractor-trailer. The pot weighed 2,133 pounds and had an estimated value of nearly $1.1 million.
• June 18, 2013: Agents with the ICE-led HIDTA Task Force found nearly 2,500 pounds of marijuana in a stash house in Rio Rico. The agency did not cite a street value of the marijuana, but the size of the load put its comparative value at more than $1 million.
• June 7, 2013: CBP officers at the Mariposa port seized an estimated $1.16 million of marijuana from a load of jalapeño peppers. The pot was packaged in 99 bundles weighing more than 2,300 pounds.
• May 27, 2013: In another bust at the Mariposa port involving jalapeño peppers – these ones canned – officers confiscated $1.6 million worth of marijuana that had been hidden in more than 2,000 of the cans. The load totaled nearly 3,300 pounds.
• March 12, 2013: Officers at the Mariposa port found more than a ton of marijuana worth approximately $1.1 million in a truck filled with bell peppers.
• Jan. 15, 2013: Port officers pulled more than 14,000 pounds of pot from a tractor-trailer at the Mariposa commercial port in what CBP at the time called the largest pot bust on record at an Arizona port of entry. The load had a reported street value of more than $7 million.

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