1.5 tons of pot is seized within the last two days
Street value of marijuana put at $3.05 million

Tucson, Arizona | Published: 09.21.2007

News from the border in the last three days:

Drug seizures net 1.5 tons of marijuana
Agents found more than 3,000 pounds of marijuana in two incidents in the past two days.

On Thursday morning, agents patrolling near the village of Vaya Chin, about 55 miles west of Tucson on the Tohono O'odham Nation, found an abandoned white, four-door Chevy pickup covered with a tarp and parked beneath a power line, said Richard DeWitt, Border Patrol Tucson Sector spokesman.

The agents found 105 bundles of marijuana inside, weighing a total of 2,020 pounds, he said. Record checks revealed the truck had been stolen in San Diego.

On Wednesday evening, agents patrolling near Mount Washington in the Patagonia Mountains west of Nogales observed footprints in the dirt and began tracking them, DeWitt said. They followed the prints up a trail until they came upon a group of people hiding in the brush.

When the agents identified themselves, members of the group — an estimated 16 people — fled. The agents, with help of an agency dog, found 16 burlap bundles of marijuana in the nearby area, weighing a total of 1,026 pounds, he said.

The 3,046 pounds of marijuana has an an estimated value of $3.05 million, according to figures from the National Drug Intelligence Center.

From Oct. 1 through Aug. 31, agents in the Tucson Sector seized 844,972 pounds of marijuana, a 40 percent increase from last year at the same time.

Agents arrest convicted sex offender

A records check conducted in Douglas revealed that a 51-year-old man who had been apprehended trying to sneak into the United States illegally was a convicted sex offender who had been deported twice, DeWitt said.
The man was convicted in Reading, Pa., in 1996 of aggravated indecent assault and endangering welfare of children and corruption of minors, DeWitt said. He was given five years probation. He had been deported in April 1998 and in January 2001, he said.

From Oct. 1 through Aug. 31, agents in the Tucson Sector apprehended 34,388 illegal entrants with criminal records, which accounts for 10 percent of all apprehensions.

â—