Ton Of Marijuana Found In Hot Sauce Shipment At Calif. Border
SAN DIEGO (CBS) — It was definitely a spicy find for U.S. Border Patrol agents: a shipment of hot sauce confiscated at the U.S.- Mexico border was found to contain over one ton of marijuana.
The bust came last Friday afternoon at the cargo checkpoint in Otay Mesa, where customs agents decided to take a closer look at the trailer loaded with what had been reported to be hot sauce.
After a border patrol agent detained the driver — a 39-year-old male Mexican citizen and resident of Tijuana — for secondary screening, officers ran the tractor trailer through the port's x-ray imaging system.
Once they opened the shipment, they found 123 bundles of marijuana among bottles of hot sauce.
Officials said the marijuana has an estimated street value of $1.4 million.
The driver was arrested and transported to the Metropolitan Correctional Center, while agents seized the marijuana, tractor and trailer.
