U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers discovered over 70 pounds of fentanyl worth more than $5,000,000 concealed within the spare tire of a truck in California.
CBP officers at Andrade Port of Entry found 71.29 pounds of blue fentanyl pills at the U.S.-Mexico border on July 30.
The estimated street value of the drugs found is thought to be $5,659,500.
CBP officers encountered the 46-year-old male suspect driving a 1997 Ford truck on Tuesday morning at approximately 10:22 a.m.
U.S. Attorneys Office/N/A
The suspect was seeking asylum in the U.S. from Mexico.
After an initial inspection, CBP officers referred the driver and truck to the secondary inspection area for further examination. Irregularities were detected in the rear area of the vehicle, where a spare tire was located.
During a further examination, authorities found 60 packages of alleged narcotics concealed in a spare tie.
CBP officers seized the drug haul and the vehicle.
The suspect remains in the custody of Homeland Security Investigations as enquiries remain ongoing.
“CBP is uniquely positioned to detect and seize illicit drugs entering the country, and our multifaceted approach keeps us one step ahead of transnational criminal organizations as they adapt their operations,” said Roque Caza, Port Director for the Area Port of Calexico.
“I am extremely proud of our officers’ innovative and relentless efforts to disrupt these drug smuggling attempts.”
Sidney Aki, Director of Field Operations, said in a post on X, formerly Twitter: “Got Tires? CBP officers assigned to the Andrade POE discovered and extracted 60 packages. containing blue fentanyl pills, weighing 71.29 lbs.”
Russell Contreras/AP
It comes after U.S. border patrol recorded its largest-ever fentanyl seizure after a suspect was arrested for trying to bring more than half a ton of the synthetic opioid over the U.S.-Mexico border.
The agency said that the seizures are a result of Operation Apollo, targeting fentanyl and other drug trafficking into the U.S.
The Andrade Port of Entry is the easternmost and lowest volume border crossing of the United States-Mexico border in California.
CBP has seized over 738 million doses of fentanyl since October 2023, compared with the 1.2 billion in the prior year period.
Data published by the CBP shows that so far this year, 15,149 pounds of fentanyl have been seized, as of June 2024.
Law enforcement seizures of fentanyl have skyrocketed between 2017 and 2023, according to a study by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA).
Authorities confiscated more than 115 million pills containing fentanyl in 2023, compared to only 49,657 in 2017.
The proportion of fentanyl pill seizures compared to the total number of seizures more than quadrupled, with pills representing 49 percent of illicit fentanyl seizures in 2023 compared to 10 percent in 2017.
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