BP agents have busy 3 days finding entrants, narcotics
Shots fired, rocks thrown at them all in day's work
By Brady McCombs
Arizona Daily Star
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 04.26.2008

An eventful past three days along the U.S.-Mexican border in Southern Arizona saw violent encounters between agents and drug smugglers, rescues of illegal immigrants, drug seizures, a bus rollover and the discovery of a stash house.

Violent encounters

U.S. Border Patrol agents were involved in two violent incidents with drug smugglers Wednesday and Thursday in downtown Nogales.

At 10 p.m. Wednesday, east of the Dennis DeConcini Port of Entry, agents using a remote video surveillance system β€” a stand-alone 60-foot pole that holds four cameras β€” spotted three people carrying bundles, said Mike Scioli, Border Patrol Tucson Sector spokesman.

They lost sight of the trio as they made their way into a housing development but shortly after, agents saw a sport utility vehicle leaving the area.

Agents tried to stop the Ford Explorer as it headed south toward Mexico at high speeds. The vehicle stopped near the border, and agents saw the driver get out and jump over the fence into Mexico, Scioli said.

Then, agents heard a yell followed by a volley of gunfire from Mexico. Agents took cover and were unable to identify the gunmen or whether the shots were aimed at them, he said.

They called Mexican authorities, who went to the area but didn't find the gunmen. Agents found three bundles of marijuana weighing a total of 158 pounds inside the sport utility vehicle, Scioli said.

At 1 a.m. Thursday, camera operators spotted three men climbing the border fence at Short Street east of the Deconcini port, he said.
An agent driving an armored Border Patrol vehicle known as a "war wagon" drove to the area and was peppered by rocks from south of the line. He countered by using his pepper-ball launcher, Scioli said.
Additional agents arrived, and the rock-throwing stopped. Nobody was hurt, he said.

They recovered one bundle of marijuana on the U.S. side and witnessed another bundle thrown back into Mexico. They contacted Mexican authorities, but no arrests were made.

The vehicles and drugs seized in both incidents were turned over to the Drug Enforcement Administration.

The Border Patrol said 132 assaults have been made on agents since Oct. 1 in the Tucson Sector.

Rescues

Border Patrol agents rescued two illegal immigrants at nearly the same time Thursday night in different locations.

At about 7 p.m., agents received a call about a woman in distress from a resident in the village of Cowlic, located southwest of Sells on the Tohono O'odham Reservation, Scioli said.

The caller said the woman was lost in the desert. Border Patrol agents responded to the area, along with a Customs and Border Protection helicopter. About 90 minutes later, agents in the helicopter saw the woman and two friends, Scioli said.

The 40-year-old Mexican woman was suffering from extreme dehydration, he said. She was semi-conscious and unable to respond to basic questions.
They called paramedics and took her to the Sells hospital. From there, she was airlifted to St. Mary's Hospital in Tucson where she recovered, he said.
The other rescue occurred at about 7:35 p.m. in Cochise County near Bisbee when an 18-year-old Mexican woman passed out after being apprehended with her group, Scioli said.

She was unconscious but breathing, the agent told paramedics he called to the scene. She was taken to the Copper Queen Hospital in Bisbee where she was treated and cleared for travel three hours later. She was voluntarily returned to Mexico, Scioli said.

Drug seizures

U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers found 27 pounds of heroin inside a minivan Thursday at the Mariposa Port of Entry in Nogales, and Border Patrol agents seized more than 2,000 pounds from a pickup truck in Green Valley on Friday morning.

A 37-year-old man from Nogales, Sonora, attempted to cross through the port in a 1997 Dodge Caravan about 7 p.m., a news release from Customs and Border Protection said.

A drug-sniffing dog alerted officers to an odor coming from the minivan, and the officers found seven packages of heroin inside a hidden compartment built into the vehicle. The driver was arrested.
The 27 pounds of heroin has an estimated value of $428,625, according to the National Drug Intelligence Center.

Through the first six months of fiscal year 2008, officers have already stopped more attempts, 11, to smuggle heroin and seized more pounds, 98, of the drug than in all of fiscal year 2007 when they made eight seizures of 67 pounds, the release said.

The Border Patrol drug seizure occurred Friday morning at about 5:30 in Green Valley when agents spotted a suspicious 2005 Dodge Ram pickup truck at West Calle Tres and Via Montana Vista, Scioli said.

When the driver saw the agents, he turned around and headed west into the desert area. The agents searched but were unable to find the driver.

They did find the truck and 89 bundles of marijuana inside weighing 2,090 pounds, Scioli said. The 2,090 pounds has an estimated value of $1.2 million, according to National Drug Intelligence Center figures.

Bus rollover

Two Wackenhut workers were airlifted to a Tucson hospital Friday morning after a bus they were in rolled near Huachuca City in Cochise County.
The Wackenhut Corp., based in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., has a Department of Homeland Security contract to transport illegal immigrants to processing centers from areas where they are apprehended by Border Patrol agents.

At about 3:30 a.m, the bus rolled, said Wackenhut spokes-man Marc Shapiro. The only people in the bus were the driver and another employee, both women, he said.

It doesn't appear the injuries are life-threatening, he said. It remains unclear what caused the bus to roll, he said.

Stash house found

A stash house was discovered Thursday night at about 7:30 p.m. in Rio Rico, south of Tucson. Officials executed a search warrant and found 45 people inside, Scioli said.

Five men in the house identified as smugglers are going to be prosecuted, he said.

The other 40 were illegal immigrants from Mexico and were taken to a Border Patrol processing center.

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