Agents find marijuana stuffed inside coconuts in a shipment crossing the US-Mexico border at the Pharr International Bridge, near McAllen, Texas. US Customs and Border Patrol agents uncovered 1,423 pounds of the green stuff at the Pharr International Bridge, near McAllen, Texas.
CBP officers at the crossing inspected a tractor-trailer hauling a commercial shipment with both nonintrusive imaging inspection and canine teams, ultimately uncovering 2,486 packets of the suspected drug, ABC News reports. The drugs, with a reported value of $285,000, were seized, and Homeland Security Investigations special agents are pursuing the case.
This is not the first time traffickers have attempted to smuggle marijuana stuffed inside coconuts, nor are coconuts the only food product used to obscure drug shipments. Marijuana has been found in packages painted to look like watermelons, and crystal meth has been found hidden in pineapples.
“Our officers’ ability to use all available resources, combined with their experience, has resulted in numerous discoveries of illegal narcotics,” CBP Port Director Efrain Solis Jr. said in the statement. “We are keeping drugs off our streets, protecting our communities and our vigilance is continuous.”
One would almost have to admire their creativity. But despite the ingenuity, the latest inventive way to smuggle marijuana across the border didn’t work, either. Officers seized the small marijuana packages that together weighed more than 1,000 pounds.
In December, agents in Chicago found a tomato shipment with $7 million worth of cocaine in it, and earlier this year agents in Texas found fake carrots packed with marijuana.
Vaunted Sinaloa cartel chief Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman even went so far as to open a cannery in Mexico to produce drug-stuffed peppers to be smuggled into the US, Yahoo Finance reported.
Photos released by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Office of Field Operations show plastic-wrapped packages of marijuana stuffed inside coconuts. The case remains under investigation by Homeland Security Investigations.
