If you’re going to smuggle narcotics into the U.S. from Mexico you’ll need to find a clever way to hide the drugs among seemingly innocent cargo. Smugglers love to stash their illicit drugs in commercial shipping trucks, counting on the high volume of legitimate truck shipments to throw law enforcement off their trail.
It’s common to see news stories about vegetable-laden trucks that look innocent only to be found carrying millions of dollars in cocaine or fentanyl. But a recent attempt upped the ante on creativity. According to the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP), a 29-year-old truck driver stashed more than $5 million worth of methamphetamine inside a truck full of watermelons.
Well, a truck partially full of watermelons. The truck was trying to cross into the U.S. at the Otay Mesa Commercial Facility located in San Diego in the southernmost part of the Golden State. Once through, the driver was stopped at a second inspection point. Investigators found watermelons, but they also found inflatable fake watermelons nestled alongside the real fruit, and the meth was secreted inside the plastic toys.
All told the inflatable fruits held 4,587 pounds of methamphetamine. It has a street retail value of $5 million. Rosa Hernandez, director of the entry port, said the method of concealment was “sophisticated,” and that she was “incredibly proud” of the law enforcement team for seeing through such an elaborate deception.
Drug cartels are in a constant race with police, and this pressure drives them to come up with new and creative ways to hide drugs to get them across the border, Hernandez said. This means cops have to increase their sophistication level too.
Other recent busts have included a big seizure of 2,585 pounds of meth in Atlanta that came into the U.S. hidden inside a truck full of celery. Sold on the street, the drugs could fetch more than $3 million.
The Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA)’s Atlanta Division director Robert Murphy said the smuggling of so much meth inside a celery truck shows how “confident” Mexican drug lords have become. He called the amount of meth found in the U.S. from this shipment “unbelievable.”
