Nearly $4 million worth of narcotics were seized from a sedan near the San Clemente border checkpoint on Sunday, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
Around 1 p.m., a 2005 Ford Focus was stopped near the Avenida Presidio exit, where drug-sniffing dogs would alert agents to make a more thorough search.
That resulted in the discovery of 81 bundles—24 of methamphetamine, 42 of cocaine and 15 of fentanyl.—throughout the vehicle, according to the Border Patrol.
The estimated street value of $3,940,680—for 116.29 pounds of coke, 52.69 pounds of fentanyl and 38.80 pounds of meth—does not include the value of marijuana the driver had on him for suspected personal use, the agency notes.
The fellow was turned over to the Drug Enforcement Administration, while the Border Patrol kept the Focus.
A day earlier near the I-5 freeway checkpoint, agents seized 47.43 pounds of methamphetamine hidden in the spare tire of a 2008 Dodge Caliber, according to the Border Patrol.
That driver was a 21-year-old woman who was traveling with her 8-year-old sister and 12-year-old brother. The adult was arrested on suspicion of smuggling, and the kids were turned over to San Diego County Child Welfare Services, the Border Patrol reports.
As of July 31, 1,069 pounds of cocaine and 2,166 pounds of methamphetamine have been seized along the San Diego Sector during fiscal year 2016.
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.