Two busts at or near the San Clemente border checkpoint on Wednesday resulted in seizures of $1.3 million worth of black tar heroin, China White heroin and crystal methamphetamine, according to the U.S. Border Patrol.
]
First, around 1:30 p.m. Wednesday, agents on patrol stopped a “suspicious” 2008 Toyota Camry heading north on the 5 freeway at Crown Valley Parkway north of the checkpoint.
The 44-year-old driver, a U.S. citizen who said he was traveling to the San Fernando Valley area, gave his permission to have a canine officer search the sedan, according to Border Patrol information officer Gerardo U. Gutierrez.
That led to a discovery of a false compartment with bundles containing 1.21 pounds of black tar heroin, 17.20 pounds of China White heroin and 22.38 pounds of crystal meth all valued on the street at $573,720, according to Gutierrez.
Later that same day, a 25-year-old U.S. citizen who rolled into the checkpoint in a 2001 Toyota Solara and was sent to a secondary inspection area, where he also allowed a canine search, Gutierrez said.
That produced 69 packages of meth in the rear quarter panels of the vehicle, said the spokesman, who added the narcotics weighed a total of 82.36 pounds and had an estimated street value of $823,600.
Neither arrestee was identified.
Email: mc****@oc******.com. Twitter: @MatthewTCoker. Follow OC Weekly on Twitter @ocweekly or on Facebook!
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.