By Nneka Nwogwugwu
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Officials of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection have seized nearly $3 million, about N1.5 billion worth of methamphetamine, hidden among a shipment of onions.
The officials discovered the drug during a tractor-trailer’s inspection at federal facility in San Diego on Friday.
A K-9 unit for the U.S. Customs alerted to the trailer’s shipment of onions and officers found nearly 1,200 small packages of meth, the agency said Friday in a news release.
One of the detector dogs alerted officers to the shipment, who discovered 1,197 packages of meth — roughly 1,336 pounds — worth an estimated street value of $2.9 million, according to CBP.
The packages, which were mixed with the onion shipment in sacks, “were shaped into small globes with a white covering, designed to blend into the onions they were hidden with,” the release said.
The 46-year-old driver, a Mexican national who was not named, was arrested for the alleged narcotic smuggling attempt at the Otay Mesa port-of-entry commercial vehicle facility, officials said.
“This was not only a clever attempt to try and smuggle in narcotics, one I haven’t seen before, but also time consuming to wrap narcotics into these small packages, designed to look like onions,” said Sidney Aki, CBP Director of Field Operations in San Diego.
“While we have certainly seen narcotics in produce before, it’s unusual for us to see this level of detail in the concealment.”
