The El Centro Sector in Border Patrol’s operations includes Salton City, California where a woman was arrested for smuggling meth, fentanyl, and heroin. Once again: it’s always fentanyl, folks.
In late September 2022, Border Patrol pulled over a white Toyota Corolla at the Highway 86 immigration checkpoint and a search was initiated, according to the CBP.
When a drug-sniffing dog came into the scene, it alerted agents to the back of the Corolla. Three large bags were fished out of the car and inside were a number of packages wrapped in tape.
California Woman Arrested While Smuggling Over $285K in Meth, Heroin, and Fentanyl into the U.S
Now, there are a number of signs here that pointed to this woman going to federal prison for a forced vacation in this one situation. First, the 42-year-old was coming in from Mexico meaning her vehicle was going to be checked anyway.
Border Patrol has seen naturalized citizens, undocumented immigrants, and born citizens smuggle everything and everyone through every point of entry. There’s no “Eh, let them slide but stop that smuggling.”
Riding through a checkpoint that sees daily or weekly drug, undeclared, and counterfeit seizures means you’re getting checked even if you’re clean.
Secondly, she was asked to move to another station for inspection. She’s riding with almost $300K in drugs—enough to kill tens of thousands, as District Attorneys and sheriffs will often point out. This woman is done, she’s out of here but just to seal it the K-9 is brought out.
The woman had to know that she was screwed here. Even if she wasn’t there for the packing of the drugs, she had to know that they probably weren’t packed well or at least that the smell wasn’t masked. The only way she was making it out of this one was if the agent was on the traffickers’ payroll and that wasn’t the case here.
Border Patrol agents found 117 pounds of meth which made up the bulk of the 111 packages! The meth came out to over $247,000 on the street. They also found 179 grams of different colored fentanyl pills which had a street value of almost $36,000 and 25 grams of heroin worth about $2,500.
Needless to say, this was a hefty seizure for California border agents. The woman was arrested and handed over to the Imperial County Narcotics Task Force along with the 321 pounds of drugs.
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