US border agents seized over 800,000 pounds of narcotics in FY 2019
CBP Deputy Commissioner Robert Perez warns dangerous drug cartels are preying on the weak and addicted in communities across the country.
Customs and Border Protection Deputy Commissioner Robert Perez reacted on Friday to the discovery of a third tunnel in an Arizona town providing a hidden drug-smuggling passageway underneath the U.S.-Mexico border.
“Every town is a border town,” Perez told “Fox & Friends,” noting that more than 800,000 pounds of narcotics were seized before they entered the country by U.S. border agents in fiscal year 2019.
“There isn’t one inch of soil in the entirety of the country that’s not affected by this scourge, by the tragedy of all the deaths that we have seen from this narcotic trade. And that is why the entirety of the country and we all need to remain very focused on this," Perez said.
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Two Mexican nationals were arrested in Arizona this week after the tunnel was found in the town of Nogales this month, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said in a statement Thursday.
ICE agents found the 82-foot long, 8-foot deep tunnel Tuesday while carrying out a search warrant on a home in Nogales, Ariz., the statement said. About 200 pounds of meth, two pounds of white heroin, three pounds of cocaine and six-and-a-half pounds of fentanyl were also found during the raid.
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The two Mexican nationals -- Jovany Robledo-Delgado and Jesus Martinez Selgado – were arrested and charged with possession and conspiracy to distribute hard narcotics. They both appeared in U.S. federal court Wednesday.
The tunnel runs from the Arizona home to the entry of a sewage pipeline called the International Outfall Interceptor (IOI). The IOI transports millions of gallons of sewage water a day from the sister cities of Nogales – one in Mexico, Sonora, the other across the international boundary in Arizona – to a treatment plant in Rio Rico, Ariz., Fox 10 Phoenix reported.
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“This is what fuels the entirety of the humanitarian and ongoing national security crisis on the border,” Perez said.
“Make no mistake about it, we need to continue to put every resource we can to beat back these criminal organizations, profiting by these poisons affecting every town, every city, everywhere in this country.”
Fox News’ Danielle Wallace contributed to this report.
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