Police: Marijuana smuggled to beach

November 23, 2010 8:39 PM
By MICHAEL BARAJAS/Valley Morning Star

SOUTH PADRE ISLAND — Five men appeared in federal court Tuesday on charges that they attempted to smuggle more than 1,500 pounds of marijuana from a South Padre Island beach, court records show.

Federal agents arrested Miguel Angel Mora-Gonzalez and Fidencio Mendez-Flores, both of Weslaco; Edgar Arnulfo Sosa of Brownsville; Juan Carlos Frias-Torres of Veracruz, Mexico; and Jose Rosalio Hinojosa-Vallejo of Matamoros on Sunday just north of beach access 6, records state.

All five men went before a federal judge in Brownsville’s U.S. District court on Tuesday and are being held without bail until a detention hearing set for Monday, court records show.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection marine agents discovered the five men while on patrol near public beach accesses on the Island Sunday, a criminal complaint states.

Agents reported the five men had two vehicles and were attempting to recover about 1,527 pounds of marijuana that had apparently been deliberately dumped on the beach north of access 6, records show.

All five men told agents that they were being paid to recover the marijuana from the beach and to transport it to an unknown location in Brownsville, records show.


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Marijuana found in submerged vehicle
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November 23, 2010 7:56 PM
By JAZMINE ULLOA, The Brownsville Herald

U.S. Border Patrol agents are taking inventory of more than 700 pounds of marijuana confiscated early Tuesday from a vehicle submerged in the Rio Grande in Brownsville.

Border Patrol spokeswoman Rosalinda Huey said the agents spotted a white Ford truck at about 10 a.m. traveling north from the river. When the driver of the truck saw the agents, he turned back south and plunged the vehicle into the river, she said.

The incident happened off Flor de Mayo on the other side of the border fence from northwest Brownsville.

The driver was said to have fled to Mexico. The Ford truck had been reported stolen in Pharr, Huey said.

Contrary to some media reports, Huey said the Border Patrol agents did not report hearing shots.

“At no times did agents hear any shots fired, and they did not fire any shots,â€