TUCSON: U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents arrested two alleged smugglers with a combined $452,000 worth of drugs in separate incidents on Tuesday, June 23.
At the Port of Douglas, 19-year-old Richard V. Cota was taken into custody after CBP officers discovered nearly 216 pounds of marijuana concealed within the Douglas resident’s Chevrolet sedan. The narcotics had an estimated value of $108,000.
At the Port of Nogales, a 40-year-old Mexican national was apprehended after a CBP narcotics-detection canine alerted the officers at the Mariposa crossing of almost three pounds of cocaine and 22 pounds of heroin concealed within the Nogales, Sonora man’s Saturn sedan. The cocaine was worth nearly $28,000 and the heroin was valued at almost $317,000.
The drugs and the vehicles involved were processed for seizure. The suspects were referred to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security.
