Here’s a recipe for the stupid criminal files:
Fill large packages – about watermelon size – with methamphetamine. Form each package into a watermelon shape and cover each package with a wrapper that is printed to look like a watermelon. Oh, don’t forget to slap an agricultural sticker on each package. Load the packages up in a watermelon truck from Mexico bound for California. What could go wrong?
In the annals of disguises that didn’t work, a truckload of 1,220 packages of methamphetamine wrapped in plastic painted to look like watermelon (well, sort of), was seized among real watermelons as the truck crossed from Mexico into the US at the Otay Mesa crossing. The total amount of methamphetamine seized weighed in at around 4,500 pounds. The haul is estimated to be worth $5 million.
While this seizure may make for a good laugh (the fake watermelons were anything but works of art), drugs crossing the border hidden among produce is not a laughing matter.
A week before this seizure, 300 kilograms of meth was found in a shipment of celery crossing the San Diego border. Meth has been seized in shipments of bananas, cheese, avocados, and green beans among other everyday fruits and vegetables bound for the U.S.
DEA and the US Customs and Border Patrol assert that the Mexican cartels are behind these fake shipments. And the fake produce isn’t just bound for California. Shipments have been seized in other states as well. Not long ago, Georgia agents seized over 2,500 pounds of methamphetamine concealed in boxes of celery at a farmers’ market outside Atlanta.
The watermelon seizure at the California border is credited to the counter-fentanyl efforts launched almost a year ago at the Southern California border. Known as Operation Apollo, a coordinated effort between federal, state, and local partners utilizing a sophisticated strategy to disrupt the supply chain of illicit drugs crossing from Mexico into the U.S.
The Otay Mesa border is a major artery for the trafficking of drugs into the U.S. with fentanyl being largest concern. The San Diego crossing accounting for 47 percent of all fentanyl seizures. But U.S. Customs and Border Protection see smuggling of all sorts, not just meth and fentanyl. Cocaine and heroin are also often seized.
Often the seizures are of drugs carried in private passenger vehicles. Earlier this year, customs agents stopped a 67-year-old man driving a late model sedan through the dedicated lane for trusted travelers. The driver was enrolled in the Secure Electronic Network for Travelers Rapid Inspection (SENTRI) program, which allows expedited clearance for pre-approved, low-risk travelers. The driver was transporting 120 pounds of fentanyl, methamphetamine, cocaine, and heroin estimated to be worth $2,072,572 inside the vehicle’s tires. So much for that driver’s retirement plan.
As Mexico-US smuggling operations become increasingly sophisticated, so too do law enforcement efforts to catch them. Operation Apollo is the latest in that effort, but it is always a cat and mouse game. Many evade law enforcement at the border and those drugs end up on our city streets, causing untold suffering and death.
Orange County criminal defense attorney William Weinberg has represented criminal defendants in Southern California for 30 years. He is available for a complimentary consultation to discuss your criminal matter. You may contact him at his Irvine office at 949-474-8008 or by emailing him at bill@williamweinberg.com.