Police find abandoned trailer loaded with US $63 million worth of drugs

Authorities in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, say they confiscated an abandoned flatbed trailer loaded with US $63 million worth of illegal drugs hidden among sacks of plaster.

Local authorities, working with the military and the federal Attorney General’s Office, confiscated 2,894 pounds of marijuana, nine pounds of fentanyl, 144 pounds of crystal methamphetamine and 13 pounds of white heroin after receiving a 911 call reporting the abandoned truck in the city’s Tierra y Libertad neighborhood.

No arrests were made.

“Upon doing a preventative inspection in accordance with police protocols, drug-sniffing dogs detected the presence of various types of drugs in the trailer’s platform that was transporting hundreds of bags of plaster,” authorities said in a press release.

The tractor-trailer was towed to a city police station where officers discovered the drug haul.

Authorities said the fentanyl was enough to make 4 million pills worth 1.2 billion pesos (US $60.5 million). The marijuana, wrapped in 437,900 individual packages, was worth 21.8 million pesos and the crystal methamphetamine was enough to make 328,000 doses, with a value of 26.2 million pesos. The heroin seized was enough to make 60,000 doses worth 3.6 million pesos.

Synthetic drugs have been omnipresent in recent years at the U.S.–Mexico border, with nearly every major drug cartel manufacturing or trafficking in methamphetamine and fentanyl.

Last year, U.S. Customs and Border Protections officers at the Arizona-Mexico border seized 254 pounds of fentanyl, valued at US $3.5 million, hidden under the floor of a tractor-trailer carrying produce from Mexico. At the time, it was the largest-ever fentanyl seizure on record.

In October, authorities confiscated 56 pounds of fentanyl and fentanyl powder at the Otay Mesa, California, cargo inspection facility, along with 3,014 pounds of methamphetamine and 64 pounds of heroin. The total value of the seizure was $7.2 million, authorities said.

Sources: Reforma (sp), KTSM-9 News (en)