Nogales port officers seize pot disguised as watermelons

Customs and Border Protection officers at the commercial port in Nogales seized 1,455 pounds of marijuana disguised as watermelons from a tractor-trailer rig being driven by a Mexican national, officials said.

Officers at the Mariposa Commercial Facility sent the rig, driven by Antonio Vasquez-Nolan, 39, of Hermosillo, Sonora, to a inspection Monday after a hit from a drug dog, CBP said in a news release.

Inside the rig officers found a load of watermelons. Mixed in with those watermelons were marijuana bundles disguised to look like watermelons.

Back to homepage

Subscriber Login

Keep reading with a digital access subscription.

Subscribe now

The load contained 128 bales of marijuana shaped like watermelons inside cardboard boxes. The drugs were worth about $728,000.

Officers seized the drugs, tractor-trailer rig and produce, and referred Vasquez to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations.