The World Trade Bridge between the United States and Mexico is one of the most secure and fortified ports of entry along the US southern border. But drug traffickers still smuggle the majority of illicit drugs through official ports of entry like the one in Laredo. Sometimes, they get caught. On Tuesday, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) seized roughly 7,300 pounds of marijuana. Officers estimate the marijuana packages are worth $1.4 million.
CBP officials seized the marijuana and turned the investigation over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and special agents with Homeland Security Investigations. Tuesday’s marijuana bust comes on the heels of a weekend involving seven other marijuana seizures in the Rio Grande Valley.
CPB Says Marijuana Seizure Highlights Seriousness of “Drug Threat”
By all appearances, the 2019 Freightliner tractor-trailer carrying a commercial shipment of synthetic rubber was just another truck waiting to cross the US-Mexico border. But after a secondary inspection involving a drug-sniffing dog and a “non-intrusive imaging system,” CBP officers discovered more.
Hidden amid the commercial rubber shipment were 768 packages of marijuana, according to a CBP press statement. The packages contained a total of 7,272 pounds of marijuana. Officers said the weed carried a street value of $1.4 million dollars.
But as usual with police estimations, the numbers seem a little off. At $1.4 million, that’s $192.52 per pound of marijuana. That shakes out to about $12 an ounce, or $1.50 per eighth. If that’s correct, the true victims of this situation are whoever ends up paying standard middies prices for marijuana from Mexico.
However CBP arrived at its $1.4 million estimate, the agency is using the high-profile seizure to play up