By David Matthews
New York Daily News
SAN DIEGO — Customs and Border Protection agents seized $10 million worth of cocaine and meth hidden in vats of jalapeño paste at an inspection site in San Diego.
The bust happened at the Otay Mesa Cargo Facility on Dec. 13 when K-9 dogs sniffed out the illicit cargo inside a a commercial tractor-trailer.
CBP officers carefully extracted hundreds of packages from the containers of jalapeno paste. Inside the vats were nearly 350 suspicious packages.
“The contents of the packages were tested and identified as methamphetamine with a weight of 3,161.43 pounds and cocaine with a weight of 522.50 pounds,” the agency stated.
The total estimated street value of the narcotics was $10,430,000.
In total, 332 packages of methamphetamine and cocaine weighing 3,684 pounds were seized from the shipment. The driver, a 28-year-old man, had a valid border crossing card — a U.S.-issued visa given to citizens and residents of Mexico. He was turned over to Homeland Security Investigations.
“Our K-9 teams are an invaluable component of our counter-narcotics operations, providing a reliable and unequalled mobile detection capability,” said Rosa Hernandez, Otay Mesa Port director. “By implementing local operations under Operation Apollo and CBP’s Strategy to Combat Fentanyl and other Synthetic Drugs, we will continue to secure communities and stifle the growth of transnational criminal organizations, one seizure after another.”
The agency said it seized more than 14,000 pounds of narcotics at border crossing points in the San Diego area in November.
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