In what sounds like the plot of a Netflix Original series, two teenagers from a small Arizona border town were arrested over the weekend by U.S. Border Control agents after they were found with nearly $2 million worth of narcotics in their pickup truck during a vehicle check.
According to a statement made Tuesday by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, agents patrolling the desert near the Nogales/Mariposa Port of Entry on Saturday observed several people emerge to leave packages in a parked truck. Minutes later, agents conducted a vehicle check and discovered 57 packages of what is suspected to be meth, cocaine, and heroin concealed inside the vehicle. The narcotics totaled around $1,889,600 in street value.
“We've gotten larger seizures, but this one no doubt is sizable, and it is significant,” said Border Patrol agent Daniel Hernandez in a statement. “The street value is pretty high.”
While the identity of the teens has yet to be revealed, both passengers in the vehicle are 18-year-old residents of Rio Rico, Arizona, and the two are expected to face federal charges.
The individuals who loaded the trucks have not yet been identified by authorities.
According to Hernandez, this specific area of the border, the Nogales/Mariposa Port of Entry, is usually known as a marijuana passage. “That is declining, and now we're seeing with greater frequency harder narcotics and synthetic narcotics,” he explained.