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Tucson, Arizona | Published: 11.10.2006
Hi-tech met low tech Thursday in one of the Border Patrol's biggest drug
busts of the year.
With a buzzing black hawk helicopter above and agents on horseback and on
foot on the ground, U.S. Border Patrol agents arrested 15 drug runners and
seized more than 2,000 pounds of marijuana in the Baboquivari Mountains 22
miles north of the border Thursday, according to Border Patrol spokesman
Sean King.
It started at 11:30 a.m. Thursday when a U.S. Customs and Border Protection
Air and Marine black hawk helicopter spotted the drug runners making their
way north on a trail in the Boboquivari Mountains, King said. Agents on
horses moved in on the group with instructions of their whereabouts coming
from the helicopter. Agents seized 106 bundles of marijuana and captured 15
drug runners.
The more than one ton of marijuana has an estimated street value of slightly
more than $1 million, using figures from the Arizona High Intensity Drug
Trafficking Area, the federal anti-drug analysis and intelligence center.
The drugs and smugglers were turned over to the Drug Enforcement
Administration for prosecution, King said.
The helicopter played a key role in the arrests of the smugglers,
King said. Usually, they leave their loads and head south to escape
apprehension. Agents focus on seizing the drugs and aren't usually able to
find the smugglers, King said. Agents arrest drug smugglers about one out of every
five times they seize drugs, King estimated.
"That's a huge load for us," King said. "We're not used to a group that
large bringing it in. This is a large amount of dopers to get."
The Border Patrol's Tucson Sector has seized 51,723 pounds of marijuana
through the first nearly six weeks of fiscal year 2007, which began Oct. 1,
King said. That marks a 9 percent increase over the amount it had seized at
the same time in fiscal year 2006, he said.
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