Feds seize $3 million from smuggling suspects

Border Patrol: Escondido cash seizure the largest ever in San Diego County

By Pauline Repard | 1:22 p.m. Aug. 26, 2016

Stacks of cash topping $3 million were seized from two cars in Escondido Tuesday by the U.S. Border Patrol. Two men are alleged to have planned to take the currency to Mexico. — Courtesy of U.S. Border Patrol

ESCONDIDO — More than $3 million in cash destined for Mexico was found in two cars in Escondido Tuesday, the largest cash seizure ever made by U.S. Border Patrol agents in San Diego County, authorities said Friday.

Two men, one a citizen of Mexico, the other of the United States, were arrested on charges of smuggling U.S. currency in their separate vehicles.

“It was quite a significant seizure,” said Border Patrol spokesman Mark Endicott. Stacks of crisp $100, $20, $10 and $1 bills were confiscated.



U.S. Border Patrol agents found more than $3 million in cash boxed in the trunk of one car in Escondido.An agent followed a Kia Forte off Interstate 15 to West Country Club Lane about 1:45 p.m. Tuesday and pulled over the driver. The agent suspected that the Kia was being driven in tandem with a Volkswagen Passat that sped off while the Kia was stopped, Endicott said.

Agents found $33,880 inside eight vacuum-sealed bundles in the Kia’s center console. The driver, a 53-year-old American man, was arrested.

Endicott said agents fanned out looking for the Passat and found it abandoned on Bittersweet Street, a residential cul-de-sac. The suspected driver, a 41-year-old Mexican man, was discovered hiding in some brush.

Inside the trunk of his car were eight cardboard boxes containing a total of $3,018,000 in cash.

“This amount of money represents the largest currency seizure ever in San Diego Sector,” Chief Patrol Agent Richard A. Barlow said in a statement. “The hard work and perseverance demonstrated by the involved agents was essential for this outcome.”

The two suspects were turned over to Homeland Security Investigations.

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