Nogales, Arizona - U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers at Arizona’s Port of Nogales arrested four individuals recently for attempting to smuggle more than $1,120,000 worth of methamphetamine, cocaine, heroin and hashish during three recent incidents.
Officers working at the Mariposa cargo facility Friday afternoon found more than 4 pounds of meth and almost 5 pounds of heroin, worth nearly $100,000, in buckets of automotive grease in the cab of a tractor-trailer driven by a 30-year-old Mexican man.
Saturday morning, a 27-year-old Mexican woman driving a Saturn sedan applied to enter the country through the Dennis DeConcini crossing. During the inspection, a CBP narcotics-detection canine’s alert led to the woman being arrested when officers found almost 63 pounds of heroin, cocaine, meth and hashish within the vehicle’s rear seats. The drugs are estimated to be worth more than $900,000.
On Monday evening, officers referred two women, a 47-year-old Stanfield, Arizona resident and her 32-year-old passenger from Riverside, California, for a secondary inspection of the driver’s Nissan sedan. When the women attempted to enter the U.S. through the Mariposa crossing, a CBP canine’s alert led officers to find more than 40 pounds of meth, worth in excess of $124,000, in the vehicle’s gas tank.
Officers arrested all subjects for narcotics smuggling and seized their vehicles, along with the drugs. All subjects were then turned over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations.