Officer Says Drug Smugglers Rushing Loads Through Valley

Posted: Jan 24, 2012 6:03 PM
Updated: Jan 24, 2012 6:08 PM

RIO GRANDE CITY - Drug smugglers are trying to rush their drug loads in and out of the Valley. They don't consider stash houses safe anymore. They may be doing that because law enforcement are blanketing most of their drug smuggling routes.

A Rio Grande City police officer ran the plates of a white truck near 755 and Eisenhower Tuesday afternoon. It didn't have any insurance. The officer says the driver was very nervous. He consented to a search. The officer found drugs inside. Officers weighed the drugs; 400 pounds of marijuana was bundled in makeshift backpacks. They'd just come from the river.

"When we conduct seizures, they look like this, damp, heavier than what they really weigh," says an undercover narcotics officer.

The officer says these drugs were probably not going to a stash house in the Rio Grande Valley.

"They take this up to a ranch, and tonight they get it past the checkpoint in Falfurrias. They get their load up north," says the officer.

He says the smugglers will use mules to carry the backpacks, each one weighs as much as 80 pounds. He says cartels don't want to take the chance their guys on the ground will run into law enforcement on their way in and out of the stash houses. He says they can't afford to lose these loads.

Last year was a record year for Rio Grande City police. They seized around 60,000 pounds of drugs in their corridor. The officers say more narcotics and patrol officers are blanketing the same routes the smugglers use to push their drugs.

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