U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers made the second-largest seizure of marijuana in Nogales history this past weekend when they found two and a half tons hidden among watermelons in a tractor-trailer.
At about 2:30 p.m. Saturday at the Mariposa port of entry in western Nogales, officers screening commercial shipments noticed a problem with the tractor-trailer and suspected there could be drugs inside, said Brian Levin, Customs and Border Protection spokesman. A drug-sniffing dog hit on the trailer as well, prompting agents to begin a thorough search, he said.
They ran the tractor-trailer through an X-ray machine and spotted anomalies within the contents. As officers unloaded the containers of watermelon, they found found 200 bundles of marijuana.
The 5,191 pounds of marijuana had an estimated value of $2.984 million, using figures from the National Drug Intelligence Center.
The marijuana was seized and the driver was arrested and turned over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The seizure marked the second-largest in Nogales, Levin said. The largest occurred on June 2, 2007, when officers discovered 6,160 pounds of marijuana hidden within pallets of tomatoes in a tractor-trailer.
