Drug smugglers have found yet another way to get marijuana bundles across the border - using a catapult.
National Guard troops operating a remote video surveillance system near Naco on Friday spotted people launching bundles of marijuana from a catapult in Mexico, said Border Patrol spokesman Steven Passament.
The Guard troops told the Border Patrol, whom they are serving during their current border mission, and the agency contacted Mexican authorities.
That same night, Mexican officials went to the location and broke up the operation, seizing the trailer-mounted catapult and 45 pounds of marijuana. The men fled.
The Border Patrol has seen a wide variety of techniques used to smuggle marijuana across, under and over the border, but this was a first, Passament said.
There are 560 National Guard troops along Arizona’s stretch of U.S.-Mexico border now in the "Copper Cactus mission," which began on Aug. 1 and is scheduled to end June 30.
Most of them - 504 to be exact - are supporting the Border Patrol in around-the-clock border observation posts like the one these troops were in when they spotted the catapult.
The rest of the troops are working in administrative roles to support the observation posts or as criminal-intelligence analysts with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The 560 soldiers in Arizona represent nearly half of the 1,200 troops President Obama authorized in May for active duty along the U.S.-Mexico border.
The troops have weapons and will be authorized to use them within the established rules of force, which include self defense. But they won't be allowed to apprehend anybody, the same rules as the during last major National Guard mission; Operation Jump Start from 2006-2008.
The mission is part of the Obama administration's overall border-security plan, which includes funding for more federal agents to slow people and drug smuggling into the U.S. as well as money and gun trafficking into Mexico
Contact reporter Brady McCombs at 573-4213 or bmccombs@azstarnet.com.
