Thread: CBP Border Patrol Checkpoint Seizes Arsenal of Weapons

This is why our 2nd amendment is so important. Criminals will always be able to get firearms. Banning them would prevent law abiding people from defending themselves from the criminal element.

http://www.cbp.gov/xp/cgov/newsroom/new ... 2006_4.xml



CBP Border Patrol Checkpoint Seizes Arsenal of Weapons

(Thursday, October 19, 2006)

contacts for this news release

Campo, Calif. — U.S. Customs and Border Protection Border Patrol agents and the California Highway Patrol coordinated efforts resulted in the successful seizure of an arsenal of weapons at a Border Patrol checkpoint in Eastern San Diego County.

The incident began when Border Patrol agents working at the Interstate 8 westbound checkpoint were asked by the CHP to be on the lookout for a red Mitsubishi convertible. About an hour and a half later, an agent manning the checkpoint recognized the vehicle and immediately referred it for secondary inspection. During a consensual search of the vehicle, agents discovered several firearms wrapped in heavy plastic, including five live MK II shrapnel grenades, one Heckler and Koch MP-5 sub-machinegun chambered in .223 caliber with a high capacity drum magazine, one H&K P2000 .9 mm pistol with two high capacity magazines and one H&K USP .40 caliber pistol with two high capacity magazines.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms arrived and took custody of the weapons and the two occupants of the vehicle. An investigator from the San Diego Sheriff’s Office Bomb Squad also arrived and took custody of the five fragmentation grenades.

This major arrest and seizure is a superb example of the Border Patrol’s defense-in-depth strategy using interior checkpoints, of our commitment to border awareness and intelligence, and of our efforts in maintaining effective partnerships with other law enforcement agencies. The San Diego Sector’s dedication to the core elements and objectives of our National Border Patrol Strategy are continuing to keep America safe.

just look at the amount of drugs JUST FOR OCTOBER that the border patrol has siezed. Think about how much gets IN!

http://www.cbp.gov/xp/cgov/newsroom/news_releases/

October 27 CBP Border Patrol Agents Seize More Than 1,500 Pounds of Marijuana

October 24 CBP Border Patrol Seizes More than Four Thousand Pounds of Marijuana

October 19 CBP Border Patrol Agents Seize 418 Pounds of Marijuana - Ancient art of tracking and use of CBP canine assist in seizure

October 19 CBP Officers Intercept $1.8 Million of Drugs at Calexico Port - Over 5,000 Pounds

October 17 CBP Border Patrol Thwarts Brazen Drug, Human Smuggling Attempt - 37 illegal aliens arrested, 850 pounds of Marijuana seized

October 17 CBP Border Patrol Agents Derail Smugglers’ Plans - Two-week long special operation nets 57 arrests at transit hubs

October 17 CBP Border Patrol agents seize more than 50 pounds of cocaine - Two smugglers arrested on Highway 78

October 17 CBP Border Patrol Seizes More Than a Ton of Marijuana

October 16 CBP Border Patrol Agents Arrest 8 “Surenos 13” Gang Members

October 16 Border Patrol Agents in Las Cruces Seize Half Million in Cocaine

October 13 CBP Air Disrupts Drug Smuggling Attempt and Border Patrol Canine Sniffs Out “Fishy” Load - Odor of catfish doesn’t deter nose of CBP canine

October 12 CBP Border Patrol Intercepts Nearly $1 Million in Marijuana

October 10 CBP Border Patrol Agents Seize 2,100 Pounds of Marijuana

October 10 CBP Border Patrol Agents Seize More Than 1,800 Pounds of Marijuana - Agents seize marijuana concealed in dump truck

October 06 Border Patrol Agents in Alamogordo Seize $1/2 Million in Heroin - El Paso Sector Records Its Largest Heroin Seizure in Two Years

October 05 Almost 6,000 Pounds of Drugs Intercepted at Calexico Ports - Street Value More Than $5 Million

October 04 83-Year Old Woman and Two Others Enter San Ysidro Border with Meth

October 04 CBP Border Patrol Agents in Lordsburg Seize More Than $1 Million Worth of Marijuana - First major seizure of the new fiscal year recorded in southern New Mexico

October 03 CBP Border Patrol Agents Seize More Than 1,100 Pounds of Pot

October 03 CBP Officers Intercept Drugs, Undocumented Migrants, and Finches at Calexico Ports Over Weekend

October 03 CBP Seizes Large Quantity of Narcotics at Area Ports of Entry

October 02 CBP Border Patrol Agents Snag Another Wanted Felon; Stop More Narcotics From Entering The Border Community

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent ... da6df.html

Narcotics seizures on rise along border

Record amounts of pot, cocaine found, along with more potent meth

09:44 AM CDT on Tuesday, September 26, 2006

By DAVID McLEMORE / The Dallas Morning News

On a recent muggy Sunday, a Customs and Border Protection inspector at the Lincoln-Juarez Bridge in Laredo noticed something not quite right with the driver of a 1999 Chevy Suburban crossing in from Mexico.

Within minutes, a drug-sniffing dog found 40 pounds of heroin hidden in a rear-floor compartment.

Less than a mile away – and just a few hours later – another inspector at the Gateway Bridge found 60 pounds of cocaine stuffed under the rear seat of a Mini Cooper.

The seizures netted agents $6 million in drugs and the largest heroin haul by customs officials in Laredo this year.

The Sept. 17 doubleheader was just another day along the border in what appears to be a boom year for drug trafficking. Officers at border crossings, Border Patrol agents at checkpoints and state troopers at traffic stops are finding record amounts of cocaine and marijuana.

With the fiscal year almost over, Customs and Border Protection's Laredo sector saw its heroin seizures jump 40 percent. Seizures of undeclared currency, frequently a measure of illegal drug proceeds headed south, jumped 72 percent to nearly $10 million.

And officials are particularly alarmed that a relatively new kid on the block, a purer and more addictive Mexican-produced methamphetamine, is showing up all over the state in huge amounts.

Why is so much smuggling happening now, when the Texas border bristles with a third more Border Patrol agents and double the Customs and Border Protection inspectors than five years ago?

The answer: With greater enforcement and higher demand, drug trafficking organizations are saturating the border in hopes of getting at least some of their loads across, officials say.

Mario Villarreal, assistant chief for Border Patrol's Rio Grande Valley sector, one of the busiest in the nation, said more officers mean more drugs will be intercepted.

"The increased interdictions are the result of the tremendous work by the men and women agents out on the front lines and improved technology and intelligence," Mr. Villarreal said.
border


Drug trafficking organizations have been stockpiling the drugs on the Mexican side of the border, waiting to move them across, he added.

But there's another part to the equation, said Jane Carlisle Maxwell, a specialist in researching drug trafficking trends at the University of Texas in Austin.

More drugs also mean more users.

"We have to understand that more narcotics entering the country means the number of people dependent on drugs is going up," she said. "The traffickers just have more customers."
Alarming rise in meth

The illicit drug marking the biggest increase – and the most alarming, authorities said – is the smokable form of methamphetamine, known as "ice."

This fiscal year, customs inspectors at eight ports of entry between Brownsville and Del Rio have seized 683 pounds of meth as of July 5, the most recent month for which data are available. That compares with 627 pounds for all of fiscal 2005.

DPS agents seized 123 pounds of Mexican meth in the first quarter of fiscal 2006, compared with 28.8 in the same period in the previous. fiscal year.

In June, DEA administrator Karen Tandy told a Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee that about 80 percent of the meth used in the U.S. is distributed by Mexican trafficking organizations and comes from large "super labs" built on the Mexican side of the border. Three are located at Monterrey, Ciudad Acuña and Piedras Negras.

The rise of Mexican ice – purer and more addictive than the meth produced in mom-and-pop clandestine labs in Texas – is due in part to the controlled sale of over-the-counter remedies containing pseudoephedrine, a chemical used in the manufacture of homegrown methamphetamine.

A state law passed in August 2005 limited individual sales of cold medicines to 6 grams, roughly two packages of cold pills, each month. Retailers were also required to move cold medicines behind the counter and record the names of purchasers.


This year, Congress passed a law similar to the Texas law, requiring all medicines containing pseudoephedrine be kept behind the counter and sold in limited amounts.

"I'm afraid what we did was create a monster," Dr. Maxwell said. "For it opened the doors for the Mexican drug organizations to get into meth manufacture in a big way.

"The Mexican meth is a very scary thing," said Dr. Maxwell. "That could mean people will get addicted much faster. And meth addicts tend to become paranoid and more violent. It's a threat to the entire community."

In her report on substance abuse trends in Texas for 2006 for UT's Center for Social Work Research, Dr. Maxwell found that treatment programs for methamphetamine abuse made up 14 percent of all admissions in 2005, a three-fold increase.

Phone calls about methamphetamine use to state poison control centers rose to 490 last year, compared with 144 a year earlier.

Heroin, long a flat market for traffickers, also is showing signs of resurgence. The 40-pound seizure in Laredo on Sept. 17 brought the total seized by customs officers there to 185 pounds – a 40 percent increase over last year.

Purity levels have also increased, with Mexican black-tar heroin, the generally cheaper, inferior quality product that traffickers sell in Texas, increasing from 26 percent pure to 38.5 percent in less than a year, Dr. Maxwell said.

Agent Villarreal says that the increase in seizures, while alarming, tends to be cyclical. Trafficking tends to be constant over time, he says.

"I don't think we're moving into some new plateau of drug trafficking," he said. "The smugglers have time on their hands to come up with new methods. So we'll continue working our agents in the field, and we'll try to be more creative in our tactics. The more we catch, the more it hurts the traffickers."
Traffic through Texas

The Drug Enforcement Administration estimates 65 percent of all narcotics smuggled into the U.S. enters from Mexico.

Three of the four major distribution pipelines used by Mexican drug cartels pass through Texas.

But for every strategic advance by drug agents, Mexican traffickers try out new ways to bypass law enforcement's attention.

For instance, Border Patrol agents in McAllen caught a man last June with 38 pounds of heroin sewn into a vest.

Inspectors in the Valley find that smugglers are opting for frequency over quantity, running smaller loads across the international bridges more often.

"We now have more people and are better equipped to conduct border inspections faster and more efficiently," said Felix Garza, spokesman for Customs and Border Protection at Pharr. "The smugglers know that, and they're always looking for ways to beat the system."

And for the area around Laredo, the continuing lethal turf battle between rival drug organizations across the river in Nuevo Laredo plays a key role in the intensified movement of drugs, said Leticia Moran, director of field operations for the Customs and Border Protection's Laredo office, which covers eight ports of entry from Brownsville to Del Rio.

"It appears the organizations are trying to move more hard narcotics in an effort to make more money, " said Ms. Moran. "They try to put more of the smaller loads of the more expensive drugs across."

State officials said the rising number of drug seizures suggests good police work, not a resurgence of trafficking levels to those of the 1980s.

"Law enforcement agencies at the local, state and federal levels are addressing smuggling corridors and hot spots with a strategic analysis that allows us to better utilize our resources," said Tela Mange, spokeswoman for the Texas Department of Public Safety. "As a result, we're having better successes in our interdiction efforts."

Mexican traffickers may have also been able to take advantage of recent political events in Mexico, she said, particularly the reassignment of Mexican law enforcement and military personnel from the border to Mexico City for the presidential elections and Independence Day celebrations.

"These assignments left the border significantly open to smuggling activities from the Mexican side," Ms. Mange said.