Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) officers stationed at the cargo facility in Otay Mesa, California seized nearly four tons worth of cannabis from a shipment of jalapeño peppers last week.
At around 6:15 p.m. on August 15, a 37-year-old Mexican citizen driving a tractor-trailer entered the Otay Mesa port of entry with a manifest that listed jalapeño peppers as the truck’s cargo.
A CBP officer referred the vehicle for a secondary inspection.
After the driver pulled the truck up to the dock, a canine team alerted officers to the shipment.
CBP officers investigated further and discovered hundreds of packages containing a leafy-green like substance which they determined to be cannabis through a field test.
Officers removed 314 large plastic-wrapped packages from the shipment, weighing a total of 7,560 pounds.
CBP estimated the value of the cannabis packages to be around $2.3 million.
CBP seized both the truck and cannabis.
“I am proud of the officers for seizing this significant marijuana load,” said Otay Mesa Port Director Rosa Hernandez in a press release. “Not only did they prevent the drugs from reaching our community, they also prevented millions of dollars of potential profit from making it into the hands of a transnational criminal organization.”
In a separate incident at the Otay Mesa facility on August 13, CBP officers seized 10,642 pounds of cannabis hidden in a shipment of plastic auto parts.
