WASHINGTON: Federal officers in Nogales have made yet another million-dollar marijuana bust at the Mariposa Port of Entry. The latest seizure came March 1 when U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers sent a tractor-trailer driven by a 45-year-old man from Guaymas, Sonora for a secondary inspection.
After a drug-sniffing dog alerted to the trailer’s shipment of Italian squash, officers found 240 bundles of marijuana weighing a total of 5,700 pounds. The load was valued at $2.8 million.
CBP said the driver, who was not identified by name, was arrested and referred to federal investigators. The tractor-trailer and its contents were seized.
It was the fourth reported pot bust of $1 million or more at the Mariposa port so far in 2016. On Feb. 24, officers seized $2.75 million worth of marijuana from a load labeled as electronic parts. The dope weighed approximately 5,500 pounds.
On Feb. 12, CBP made the second-largest marijuana seizure in Arizona port history by nabbing 17,000 pounds of pot worth an estimated $8.5 million from a shipment identified as airplane parts. On Jan. 2, officers at the Mariposa Commercial Facility found more than 3,300 pounds of marijuana, valued at approximately $1.65 million, hidden in a shipment of wooden furniture.
