Posted on 12/21/2007 6:41:41 PM PST by SwinneySwitch
MISSION U.S. Border Patrol agents seized more than 1,300 pounds of marijuana Friday in Anzalduas Park after a drug smuggler drove a truck into the Rio Grande and escaped in a raft, an agency official said.
About 7:30 a.m., agents on patrol near the small river town of Granjeno were dispatched to check on a pair of suspicious vehicles at the park on the far south side of Mission, said Oscar Saldaña, a spokesman for the Border Patrols Rio Grande Valley sector.
Once agents arrived, they spotted a GMC Envoy SUV and Ford F-250 truck leaving and tried to pull the vehicles over. The Envoy stopped, but the F-250 did not, instead continuing into the river.
Agents arrested one man the driver and sole occupant of the Envoy and seized 769 pounds marijuana found inside the vehicle. Saldaña would not release any information about the driver.
Agents also spotted men on a raft paddling from Mexican bank of the river toward the truck after it plunged into the water. The men in the raft pulled on board the driver of the F-250 and four bundles of what is believed to be marijuana before the group fled into Mexico, Saldaña said. He did not know how many men were on the raft.
The Mission Fire Department assisted agents in searching the submerged F-250, which was found to be carrying 544 pounds of marijuana.
Investigators believe the men on the raft, as well as the two drivers, conspired to smuggle drugs into the United States from Mexico.
Mission Police Department officials say human and drug trafficking is a regular occurrence in Anzalduas Park and other areas on the citys south side. Next year, police plan to use a federal grant-funded surveillance system to monitor the area more closely and quash those crimes, said Lt. Martin Garza, a spokesman for the department. ____
Zack Quaintance covers law enforcement and general assignments for The Monitor. You can reach him at (956) 683-4447.
Ping!
If you want on, or off this S. Texas/Mexico ping list, please FReepMail me.
Hope nobody shot him in the ass.
Kay Baily just got finished with defunding the fence so the drug smugglers can be certan of a quick and easy dash back across the border.
Yea, thanks Kay, you worthless b*t*h. Forget about running for Governer here in Texas, you got caught defunding the fence...
An amendment submitted by Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, for the Department of Homeland Security 2008 budget would gut the already-approved Secure Fence Act,
"After the Secure Fence Act of 2006 was signed into law by President Bush in October 2006, millions of Americans had a right to expect a double-layer fence would be built along our border with Mexico," Elliott said. "Now, if the Hutchison amendment gets signed into law that fence is never going to be built."
Why can’t I buy a varmit permit and secure the border myself?
http://www.alipac.us/ftopict-94643.html
With this you can find the original info.
Merry CHRISTMAS!
ping
“I wonder how they could tell it was a mexican raft?”
They is me.
“Agents also spotted men on a raft paddling from Mexican bank of the river toward the truck after it plunged into the water. The men in the raft pulled on board the driver of the F-250 and four bundles of what is believed to be marijuana before the group fled into Mexico,...”
The raft shouldn’t have made it back to Mexico.
Thanks.
It was bouncing up and down in the front and was playing ZZ Top music.
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