Border officials seized more than 150 pounds of liquid methamphetamine disguised as cases of water bottles at an entry port in El Paso, KFOX reported.
Customs and Border Protection said an 18-year-old man who is a U.S. citizen arrived at the Ysleta Port of Entry in El Paso Friday on foot from Mexico at around 7 p.m., and declared three cases of bottled water, CBP said according to KFOX.
These might look like ordinary water bottles, but @CBP agriculture specialists discovered they were filled with liquid meth. In all, 120 bottles contained 155lbs of the dangerous drug.
Great stop by CBP ag specialists in El Paso, TX! pic.twitter.com/O8huMCmIA5— CBP Mark Morgan (@CBPMarkMorgan) August 18, 2020
The man was selected for a secondary exam by border officials. A drug-sniffing dog sensed narcotics and alerted officials. An X-ray scan of the bottles, which were stored in a plastic case of 40 bottles, revealed a dense liquid inside the bottles.
The liquid tested positive for methamphetamine, and the man was arrested and turned over to Homeland Security Investigations to face charges related to the smuggling attempt, KFOX reported.
“The primary CBP officer on duty was thorough and focused and was able to identify this pedestrian as a person who needed additional scrutiny,” CBP Ysleta Port of Entry Director Arnie Gomez said.
Attempts to smuggle methamphetamine across the border are not uncommon, and the shipments can amount to millions of dollars.
CBP reported that an estimated $9 million worth of methamphetamine were seized after two separate inspections on Aug. 10. Officers discovered more than 470 pounds of the drug hidden in commercial shipments of acrylic polymers in one seizure, and later that day, roughly 15 pounds were found in another attempted entry inspection.
In May, CBP discovered nearly $37 million worth of methamphetamine in a commercial shipment of tomatoes from Mexico. Included in the shipment of tomatoes was 654 packages containing 1,847 pounds of methamphetamine, which carries a street value of $36,957,914, CBP reported. (RELATED: Border Authorities Find Nearly $37 Million Worth Of Meth In Shipment Of Tomatoes)
.@CBP continues to seize large quantities of meth along the SW border.
Last Monday, CBP officers in Laredo seized nearly 490lbs of meth across 2 enforcement actions—including a single drug load valued at over $9.4M: https://t.co/ud8u0b2QV4 pic.twitter.com/SoGHdOyMv9
— CBP Mark Morgan (@CBPMarkMorgan) August 18, 2020
Law enforcement officials confiscated substantially larger amounts of the addictive drug, a drug-tracking survey from the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) indicated in 2019. A total of 347,807 law enforcement meth seizures were submitted to various labs across the country in 2017, according to a Wall Street Journal report. The number is a 118 percent hike from 2010 submissions.