US border officers have seized a large quantity of cocaine hidden inside a commercial truck at a California crossing. The inspection took place at the Calexico port of entry on Monday night, when officers examined the vehicle and uncovered drugs concealed within its structure.
According to a federal complaint, the cocaine was hidden in the floorboards and the flatbed of the truck, which had also been outfitted with rebar. The concealment was uncovered after a Customs and Border Protection officer conducted an x-ray scan of the vehicle, which revealed anomalies and inconsistencies that prompted a closer inspection.
The scale of the seizure was significant. Officers seized a total of 366 packages of cocaine from the truck. The drugs recovered in the operation were valued at around 20 million dollars, underscoring the size of the shipment intercepted at the crossing along the border.
A single suspect was taken into custody. Jose Manuel Lopez Lopez, 44, from Mexico, was the only person in the vehicle at the time of the inspection. He has since been charged with illegally importing cocaine into the United States, according to the authorities handling the case.
Details also emerged about the route the shipment was intended to take. Lopez told officers that he had picked up the truck in Mexicali, Mexico, about 20 miles from where the inspection took place. He said his employer had instructed him to make his way to Phoenix, Arizona, with the vehicle.
The case comes amid what authorities describe as a broader trend at the border. The US Attorney overseeing San Diego said that cocaine seizures are rising, pointing to increased interdiction activity along the crossings in the region in recent times.
The seizure adds to a series of drug interdictions reported at ports of entry along the California border. Cases like this one, in which narcotics are concealed within the structure of a vehicle and detected through scanning technology, illustrate the methods used both to move drugs across the border and to intercept them.