Seattle 911: A police blog
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"Oh, I need to declare that $1.1 million hidden in the cab of my truck?"
You could call it cash and carry. But driving with dollars might be more apt.

Federal officials detained a 31-year-old British Columbia truck driver Thursday, but not for hauling an illegal load of metal fence panels across the U.S.-Canadian border at Blaine.

Rather, they stopped him for carrying $1,130,080 and not declaring the U.S. currency.

The U.S. greenbacks – mainly $10s and $20s but also $1s and $50s – were found in 22 vacuum-sealed bags in the truck's cab, U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers reported.

The money was hidden in an area that had two bunks and officers used pry bars to open secret compartments to get the cash.

"My eyes have seen $1 million. I've never seen it," customs spokesman Thomas Schreiber said. "There were a lot of Ben Franklins."

But the amount of $1 bills slowed down the counting process, he added.

A border officer asked the driver, Navraj Bal, to pull over for an X-ray inspection of his tractor and trailer. That scan detected an anomaly in the cab's sleeping bunks.

Officers brought in a dog trained to pick up on the scent of narcotics, Schreiber said. The dog examined the bunk area and "hit" on the odor of narcotics.

Officers found the bunk area contained modified compartments.

Investigators believe the money or cab might have come into contact with drugs – which explains the dog's reaction.

Federal law requires money in excess of $10,000 must be reported to federal officials when it is brought into or taken from the country.

"To us, when we find hidden in a compartment, vacuum-sealed, bundles of money, this is a criminal enterprise," Schreiber said. "Legitimate people keep money in banks."

Schreiber believes the driver, a Surrey resident, denied that he owned the money.

The more than $1.1 million set a record for money found at the Blaine border crossing. In July 2001, officers confiscated $450,000.

Officers turned Bal over to agents with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. A spokeswoman in Seattle declined comment, saying the case is under investigation.

In other border crossing news, truck driver Corey Wirsz of Chilliwack, British Columbia was sentenced Friday in federal court in Seattle to 6.5 years in prison for distributing marijuana.

The 30-year-old also faces four years of supervised release and a $12,500 fine, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Seattle reported.

Federal prosecutors said his big rig had 350 pounds of marijuana – worth about $1.2 million – hidden under the trailer floor when he tried to cross the border at Blaine Aug. 2.

Prosecutors said his tractor-trailer truck had been changed to have a false floor. His attorneys claimed that a drug-trafficking organization left the marijuana in the truck and that Wirsz had meant to buy a different vehicle.

A jury agreed with prosecutors that he broke the law.

Posted by Brad Wong at July 11, 2008 5:27 p.m.
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