Yuma News Now

At 2:10 p.m., Yuma Sector Border Patrol agents were investigating reports that subjects were in the process of building a makeshift “sandbag bridge” across a shallow portion of the Colorado River near County 17th Street. In that area, the Colorado River serves as the International Boundary between the United States and Mexico.

As the agents approached the area on foot, they surprised three people in the process of completing the “bridge.” The bridge builders immediately ran back to Mexico, and hid in the brush along the riverbank. At that exact time, a red 1999 Ford F-150 pickup truck emerged from the brush and began to drive across the sandbag bridge into the United States. When the driver of the vehicle was nearly across the bridge, he saw the agents and panicked, driving the vehicle off the bridge into the water. The driver, who was the sole occupant of the vehicle, immediately jumped out and fled back into Mexico.

Within the vehicle, agents found a total of 126 plastic-wrapped bundles of what was later determined to be marijuana.

The marijuana, which weighed a total of 1,100 pounds, with a street value of $886,000.00, was turned over to the Drug Enforcement Administration. The pickup truck was seized by the U.S. Border Patrol.