Tucson Region

Big pot seizure near Nogales

U.S. Border Patrol agents found a half-ton of marijuana Tuesday in a hidden compartment of a trailer pulled by a pickup truck that illegally drove across the border near Nogales. At about 8 a.m., agents saw the 1980 Ford F-350 truck towing a large flatbed trailer and stopped the truck near Buena Vista Ranch, east of Nogales, according to an agency news release. The driver of the truck looked nervous, and a drug-sniffing dog alerted agents to the presence of drugs in the trailer. Agents found the secret compartment with a cutting torch and confiscated 1,067 pounds of marijuana, with an estimated value of $853,600. The driver, a resident alien from Mexico, and the marijuana were turned over to the Drug Enforcement Administration. In the fiscal year that started in October, Border Patrol agents in the Tucson Sector have seized 64,352 pounds of pot, an 11 percent increase over the same period last year.