Truck busted with drugs in the gas tank at southern border
CBP officers pulled a suspicious vehicle to the side at a border checkpoint Monday, cutting open the gas tank and discovering hidden drugs inside.
Fox News cameras were at the border when U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers busted a suspicious vehicle trying to enter the country.
"There is a huge misconception that the narcotics are coming through desert… the reality is, in Arizona so far this year, we seized over 21,000 pounds of narcotics, 18,000 pounds of that is caught at the port of entry," a CBP Director of Field Operations at Nogales Port of Entry told Fox News Monday.
The reality of what officers face at ports of entry was on full display to the Fox News camera crew, who captured the moment an officer noticed something suspicious about the bed of a red truck attempting to cross the border.
FLORIDA POLICE UNIT SEIZES ENOUGH FENTANYL TO KILL 1.5 MILLION ADULTS
Fox News' William La Jeunesse reports on a CBP bust of a truck hiding fentanyl in its gas tank. (Fox News)
According to Fox News' William La Jeunesse, officers searching the vehicle cut the gas tank open and discovered 5 to 6 bags of drugs suspected to be fentanyl floating in the fuel.
Officials credited the officers' instincts and better scanning technology for enabling the bust, something that has become a common occurrence at southern ports of entry.
Officers at the Nogales Port of Entry screen about 36,000 pedestrians, cars and trucks for narcotics every day, noticing a sharp increase in attempts to traffic fentanyl across the border. The facility has seized more than a million fentanyl pills in the last two weeks, while the amount of fentanyl seizured at the facility has increased from 200 pounds in 2018 to 4,000 pounds in 2022.
U.S. Customs and Border Patrol have seen an increase in attempts to smuggle fentanyl into the United States. (U.S. Customs and Border Patrol)
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Fentanyl has become a growing issue in the U.S. in recent years, with the drug accounting for nearly 75% of fatal drug overdoses in 2021. Overall, about 80,000 people in the U.S. died of overdoses linked to fentanyl last year.
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