U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers seized $350,000 in cocaine and marijuana during the final week of January in Brownsville, Texas. The nations “front-line” security screen thousands of cars every day, but found four in five days that were loaded with illegal drugs.
Over the course of last week, they intercepted four shipments of cocaine and marijuana, made five arrests and seized four vehicles. Street value on the drugs estimated at $357,680, Petra Horne, director of the Brownsville Port of Entry, said in a statement obtained by Breitbart Texas.
The week started on Monday, January 25th at the Gateway International Bridge, when CBP Officers sent a 40 year old American man driving an SUV to “secondary screening.” The non-invasive imaging system turned up 12 kilograms, or 26.4 pounds of suspected cocaine (picture). That driver was arrested and taken to jail.
Wednesday the 27th brought another SUV over the bridge, with a 21-year-old American woman behind the wheel. Her secondary screening revealed 7.28lbs of suspected cocaine. She went directly to jail after being questioned by agents from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
On Friday, a 28 year old U.S. citizen drove across the Brownsville-Matamoros Bridge and was sent to secondary screening where the scanner found what CBP calls “anomalies” in the Dodge Neon. Officers went to work and pulled out five packages, or 12.79lbs of suspected cocaine. CBP officers arrested that driver as well.
A short time later on the Gateway Bridge, a Mexican national, a 26-year-old woman, came across in a mini-van and was sent to secondary screening. There, officers discovered multiple packages of what they suspected to be marijuana. When they stacked it up on the scale, it tallied to 49.21 lbs. An 18-year-old Brownsville woman, an American Citizen, was also in the car. Officers arrested her and the driver.
“These multiple seizures are the result of the diligence and commitment of our officers to keep our country secure,” said Port Director Petra Horne, Brownsville Port of Entry.
In December, Breitbart Texas managing director Brandon Darby and border journalist Ildefonso Ortiz went to Brownsville to investigate the on-going border smuggling operations in that region of the Texas/Mexico border. While there, the pair were aggressively followed and pursued by a group of individuals in multiple vehicles. They believed these people may have been connected with on-going smuggling in the area.
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Darby wrote:
Initially we thought the four men may be undercover police officers or federal agents–which would be a relief–however, the underlying sentiment was that the four men were in fact cartel-connected gunmen or enforcers waiting for us to return. The same sedan from which we had just fled pulled into the gas station.
We were able to speed off, but were followed. We had inadvertently left the camera on and captured audio of the ordeal. Please note that some of the language contained is extremely graphic.
Darby’s article, linked above, details the night’s encounter and describes why cartel related individuals can act so boldly within the borders of the United States.
Rob Milford is a news contributor for Breitbart Texas. You can follow him on Facebook.