SAN DIEGO – Drug smugglers are turning “trusted travelers” into unwitting mules by placing containers with powerful magnets under their cars in Mexico and then recovering the illegal cargo far from the view of border authorities in the United States.
One motorist spotted the containers while pumping gas after crossing into Southern California on Jan. 12 and thought it might be a bomb.
His call to police prompted an emergency response at the Chevron station and then a shocker: 13.2 pounds of heroin were pulled from under the vehicle, according to a U.S. law enforcement official. San Diego police said the drugs were packed inside six magnetized cylinders.
The driver had just used a “trusted traveler” lane at the San Ysidro border crossing, said the official.
Authorities have learned of at least three similar incidents in San Diego since then, all involving drivers enrolled in the enormously popular Secure Electronic Network for Travelers Rapid Inspection (SENTRI) program. There were 12.6 million SENTRI vehicle crossings in fiscal 2013, more than double the 5.9 million four years earlier.
The program enables people who pass extensive background checks to whiz past inspectors with less scrutiny. Signing up can reduce rush-hour wait times from more than two hours to less than 15 minutes at San Diego’s San Ysidro port of entry, the nation’s busiest, where SENTRI users represented 40 percent of the 4.5 million crossings in fiscal 2013, the Government Accountability Office found.
But, like other prescreening programs, there’s a potential downside: the traveler can become a target and such cases can be tricky for investigators when people caught with drugs claim they were planted.
Using magnets under cars isn’t new, but this string of cases is unusual.
The main targets are people who park for hours in Mexico before returning to the U.S., authorities say. Smugglers track their movements on both sides of the border, figuring out their travel patterns and where they park. It takes seconds to attach and remove the magnetized containers when no one is looking.
“Trusted travelers” were issued windshield decals for years, but they are no longer needed to identify vehicles. New stickers haven’t been issued since 2013, and the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency says existing stickers can be removed.
Many haven’t heeded the call – and that makes them a target, the Otay Mesa Chamber of Commerce in San Diego warned in a newsletter last week.
There have been 29 cases of motorists unwittingly carrying drugs under their cars in the San Diego area since U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement identified the trend in July 2011, including six drivers who made it past inspectors, said spokeswoman Lauren Mack.
