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Border cops nail truckers with drugs
By Jill Dunn
In a two-day period, U.S. Customs and Border Protection caught four Mexican truckers attempting to enter Texas with illegal drugs hidden in commercial shipments.
Officers who worked the Rio Grande City commercial cargo facility seized approximately 1,725 pounds of marijuana and took 505 pounds of cocaine at the Pharr facility at a total value of $17.5 million. The drivers, all male, were not immediately arrested as officers continued the investigation.
On Nov. 14, Rio Grande officers inspected a 1992 Kenworth pulling a flatbed of floor tile. They discovered $1.4 million in marijuana inside the load, pulled by a 52-year-old citizen of Camargo, Tamaulipas, Mexico.
On Nov. 15, Pharr facility officers found cocaine hidden in three northbound commercial shipments of produce.
The first involved a 61-year-old driver from Reynosa, Tamaulipas, driving a 1997 Kenworth and pulling a trailer with 172 pounds of cocaine valued at $5.5 million.
In the second shipment, the driver of a 1995 Freightliner was a 44-year-old Mexican citizen from Reynosa, Tamaulipas. Officers seized 167 pounds of cocaine from the trailer valued at $5.3 million.
In the third shipment, 167 pounds of cocaine were also discovered in a trailer pulled by a 1993 International, driven by a 37-year-old resident of Reynosa, Tamaulipas.
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