LOS ANGELES – Agents from the Customs and Border Protection Office (CBP) seized more than 1,500 pounds of cocaine with a value of on the streets of about $26 million dollars, federal authorities reported today.
The seizure occurred on Friday 26 in August when a tractor-trailer attempted to pass through the Colombia-Solidarity Bridge border checkpoint in Laredo, Texas.
The truck, which was apparently carrying baby wipes, was sent for a secondary inspection where the drug shipment was discovered.
The truck had hidden 1,935 packs of cocaine in the trailer. Packages weighed a total of 1,500 pounds, with an estimated street value of $11,818,400 dollars, as detailed in a CBP statement.
Alberto Flores, director of the Laredo Port of Entry, said in the statement that the seizure “is an excellent example of border security management” that has been developed to prevent and counter the flow of narcotics entering the United States.
In another case, last Saturday Border Patrol agents from the Rio Grande Valley sector in Texas seized more than 192 pounds of marijuana in a truck that was abandoned in the river.
According to a CBP statement, agents attempted to stop a Chevrolet Suburban near the Rio Grande in Brownsville, but the vehicle fled and headed for the river.
The driver and a passenger abandoned the vehicle, which partially submerged in the river with 10 bundles of marijuana, weighing more than 220 pounds and having a street value of more than 192,000 dollars, CBP explained.