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Pot worth $9 million seized in 3 border stops

Citizen Staff Writer

U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers made three pot busts Tuesday, seizing nearly 3 tons of marijuana, which the agency claimed was worth more than $9 million, a CPB spokesman said Wednesday.

The first would-be smuggler was stopped about noon in a Ford truck pulling a fifth-wheel trailer, Officer Brian Levin said.

Officers at the Lukeville Port of Entry pried open a compartment built in the trailer floor and found 1,247 pounds of pot, Levin said.

The second bust happened around 2 p.m., Levin said, when officers at the Mariposa Port of Entry in Nogales became suspicious of a trailer full of squash that looked odd when X-rayed.

Levin said officers unloaded the squash and found 175 bales of marijuana weighing 3,864 pounds.

The day’s final pot seizure occurred around 3:30 p.m., also in Nogales, Levin said, when X-rays revealed marijuana concealed in a truckload of computer parts.

Hidden in boxes around the components were 639 pounds of marijuana.

Levin did not name any of those arrested. He said marijuana seizures at the border were up from the same time last year.

So far this year, 47,121 pounds of pot have been confiscated in 354 incidents at Arizona ports of entry. Last year’s total for the same period was 29,976 pounds in 292 incidents.

RYN GARGULINSKI

rynski@tucsoncitizen.com

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