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Adorable Stuffed Pooch Implicated In Meth Bust
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A K-9 dog found drugs in a stuffed toy dog during a stop at the southern border last week, according to a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) press release.
An alert canine sniffed out something amiss in a Dodge Charger passing through an immigration checkpoint on Highway 78 in California on Wednesday.
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Agents referred the suspicious vehicles for further inspection and made a floppy-eared discovery. Aside from three small bags of meth in the passenger’s purse, agents found two pounds of speed stuffed inside a stuffed animal dog. All told, the drugs were worth around $6,000, according to a press release.
Two American citizens were arrested, and their drugs and vehicle “were processed in accordance with Yuma Sector guidelines,” the release said.
On the same day, agents in Arizona collared a 24-year-old man after a search turned up 51 pounds of meth valued at more than $150,000.
The Tucson man was reportedly headed into the U.S. at the Port of Nogales’ DeConcini crossing when agents referred his Chevy Impala for a secondary inspection. In the course of a closer examination, a drug dog helped authorities find 48 packages of meth stuffed in the vehicle’s rear bumper, quarter panels, firewall and roof.
Customs and Border Protection officers turned the suspect over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations.
“CBP officers are trained and skilled at what they do to prevent drugs from entering the country as proven in this case,” said Efrain Solis, CBP Nogales Port Director, in a statement. “While smugglers will continue to make these attempts, they will not thwart CBP's efforts. They need to know they will be caught.”
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Wedging drugs in cars is a favored cross-border smuggling method, but this year alone, enterprising traffickers have used everything from limes to buckets of grease to canned tuna to conceal their drug-driven endeavors.
In one particularly strange case, Arizona agents in April found 67 pounds of pot hidden in a hearse near the Arizona border. A couple months before that, agents near the Douglas Port of Entry found a catapult attached to the border fence. Nearby, they recovered two bales of marijuana apparently hurled over from Mexico.
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Keri Blakinger is a former drug user and current reporter living in Texas. She covers breaking news for the Houston Chronicle and previously worked for the New York Daily News and the Ithaca Times. She has written about drugs and criminal justice for the Washington Post, Salon, Quartz and more. She loves dogs and is not impressed by rodeo food. Find Keri on LinkedIn and Twitter.
