There appears to be no end to the ways drug smugglers attempt to sneak their illegal cargoes into the United States via San Diego area border crossings.
Take this recent seizure reported on Wednesday by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection .
Last Friday afternoon, CBP officers at the Otay Mesa cargo facility encountered a driver hauling a load of ceramic tiles.
Driver, truck, and shipment were referred to a secondary inspection area for a closer look. A imaging scan revealed what authorities describe as "anomalies" with the shipment.
The unloaded cargo was inspected by a CBP officer with a canine trained to detect humans and narcotics and the animal "alerted" to the boxes of ceramic tiles, the CBP said.
Inside the tile shipment, CBP officers discovered 56 packages of marijuana weighing a total weight of 530 pounds, with an estimated street value of $318,000.
The driver, 31, and a Mexican citizen, was turned over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and booked into the federal Metropolitan Correctional Center. He faces prosecution by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in San Diego and the shipment and truck was seized by the CBP.
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