Contributed Photo/Courtesy U.S. Customs and Border Protection: Drug smugglers attempted to hide meth within the spare tire of a truck.
SAN LUIS – U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers arrested a Mexican national and a U.S. citizen over the weekend for separate alleged attempts to smuggle almost 90 pounds of methamphetamine through the Port of San Luis.
Officers referred the driver of a Ford SUV, later identified as a 26-year-old Mexican male from Culiacan, Sonora, Mexico, for additional inspection as he attempted to enter the U.S. on Friday afternoon. After a CBP narcotics detection canine alerted to a scent it was trained to detect coming from inside the vehicle’s rear seats, officers discovered 30 packages of meth, weighing nearly 28 pounds and worth almost $84,000.
Early Sunday morning, officers referred a 22-year-old Phoenix woman for a further search of her Chevy truck. Following a canine alert, officers removed 60 packages of meth from the rear doors and spare tire, which weighed almost 62 pounds and worth nearly $186,000.
CBP officers seized the drugs and vehicles. The subjects were both arrested and turned over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations.
