6 Tons Of Pot Seized At Border

This van is packed with marijuana — one of four drug-carrying vehicles stopped by Border Patrol agents this week. (Courtesy of U.S. Border Patrol)

LAS CRUCES — A caravan of five vehicles, each wrapped in camouflage tarps and driving with its lights off, sped through the state’s southwest bootheel toward Interstate 10 shortly after midnight last Monday when a Border Patrol SUV pulled behind and attempted a stop.

The vehicles scattered, but four of the five were eventually recovered, yielding a load of more than 6 tons of marijuana with an estimated value of $10.9 million — one of the agency’s largest drug busts ever.

The drug-smuggling caravan was on County Road 1 near Animas.

“Some stopped on their own, others got stuck in the sand” while driving off-road, Border Patrol spokesman Ramiro Cordero said Friday. All of the passengers fled, and only two men from one white van were captured.

“Once he (a Border Patrol agent) lit them up, they (the smugglers) headed in all different directions,” Cordero said. “It was chaos.”

Aided by the Hidalgo County Sheriff’s Office and Customs and Border Protection surveillance, Border Patrol agents confiscated about 13,700 pounds of marijuana.

“It’s very unusual to encounter caravans of this nature, particularly in that area,” said Doug Mosier, a spokesman for the Border Patrol’s El Paso sector, which includes two West Texas counties and all of New Mexico. “This amount sends a clear signal that smugglers may be becoming more desperate.”

With miles of fences and vehicle barriers along much of the New Mexico border and a sharp increase in Border Patrol staffing, the flow of drug smuggling between ports of entry appears to have declined in recent years, Mosier said.

Between fiscal year 2007 and 2011, the total value of drugs seized in the El Paso sector fell from $119 million to $43 million.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers arrested two men, Leonardo Ortiz Chavez, 39, and Samuel Garcia Miranda, 29, both Mexican citizens, on charges of drug-trafficking and conspiracy, after the pair allegedly abandoned a van that got stuck in the sand off the road.

The van was packed with 4,334 pounds of marijuana. Border Patrol agents tracked the pair through the desert and located them north of Interstate 10.

Cordero said agents were unable to find the drivers of the other three vehicles that were abandoned with their loads of marijuana.
— This article appeared on page A1 of the Albuquerque Journal