Smugglers Using Magnets To Plant Drugs Under Cars From Mexico

SAN DIEGO (AP) — Drug smugglers are branch “trusted travelers” into oblivious mules by fixation containers with absolute magnets underneath their cars in Mexico and afterwards recuperating a bootleg load distant from a perspective of limit authorities in a United States.

One engineer speckled a containers while pumping gas after channel into Southern California on Jan. 12, and suspicion it competence be a bomb.

His call to military stirred an puncture response during a Chevron station, and afterwards a shocker: 13.2 pounds of heroin were pulled from underneath a vehicle, according to a U.S. law coercion official. San Diego military pronounced a drugs were packaged inside 6 magnetized cylinders.

The motorist had usually used a “trusted traveler” line during a San Ysidro limit crossing, pronounced a official, who spoke on condition of anonymity given some sum of a box have not been done public.

Authorities have schooled of during slightest 3 identical incidents in San Diego given then, all involving drivers enrolled in a enormously renouned SENTRI program, that stands for Secure Electronic Network for Travelers Rapid Inspection. There were 12.6 million SENTRI automobile crossings in mercantile 2013, some-more than double 5.9 million 4 years earlier.

The module enables hundreds of thousands of people who pass endless credentials checks to expert past inspectors with reduction scrutiny. Signing adult can revoke rush-hour wait times from some-more than dual hours to reduction than 15 mins during San Diego’s San Ysidro pier of entry, a nation’s busiest crossing, where SENTRI users represented 40 percent of a 4.5 million crossings in mercantile 2013, a Government Accountability Office found.

But like other prescreening programs, there’s a intensity downside: a traveler can spin a target, and such cases can be wily for investigators when people held with drugs explain they were planted.

Using magnets underneath cars isn’t new, though this fibre of cases is unusual.

The categorical targets are people who park for hours in Mexico before returning to a U.S., authorities say. Smugglers line their movements on both sides of a border, reckoning out their transport patterns and usually where they park. It takes usually seconds to insert and mislay a magnetized containers when no one is looking.

“Trusted travelers” were released windshield decals for years, though they are no longer indispensable to brand vehicles coming a review booths. New stickers haven’t been released given 2013, and a U.S. Customs and Border Protection group says existent stickers can be removed.

Many haven’t determined a call — and that creates them a target, a Otay Mesa Chamber of Commerce in San Diego warned in a newsletter final week.

“It’s fundamentally demonstrating that we are a SENTRI user,” pronounced Alejandra Mier y Teran, a chamber’s executive director. “Criminals are savvy, and they know they are partial of a module where they are not checked as much.”

CBP says visit crossers also should change their transport routines and keep a closer eye on their cars.

There have been 29 cases of motorists unwittingly carrying drugs underneath their cars in a San Diego area given U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement identified a trend in Jul 2011, including 6 drivers who done it past inspectors, pronounced mouthpiece Lauren Mack.

Any motorist who suspects something’s astray underneath their automobile should immediately news it, to improved uncover their innocence, authorities say.

Officer Matthew Tortorella, a San Diego Police spokesman, pronounced “it would be inappropriate” to make open some-more sum about a Jan. 12 seizure, and CBP mouthpiece Jacqueline Wasiluk also declined to comment, job it a internal military investigation.

There have been 3 seizures since, all involving SENTRI drivers who were not charged:

—On Jan. 13, inspectors during a Otay Mesa limit channel found 35 pounds of pot in 7 packages, trustworthy by absolute magnets to a bottom of a 2010 Kia Forte;

—On Tuesday, a motorist alerted an examiner during Otay Mesa to a package underneath a 2010 Nissan Murano, and 8 pounds of methamphetamine were found in 3 packages underneath;

—On Wednesday, a dog during San Ysidro alerted inspectors to a 2000 Toyota Corolla with 18 pounds of pot underneath. That motorist was enrolled in SENTRI though regulating a unchanging lane.

Flores, CBP’s San Diego margin bureau director, concurred that it’s surprising to have so many cases in fewer than dual weeks.

“It’s a cat-and-mouse game,” Flores said. “Each change they make prompts a change from law enforcement, that in spin prompts them to again change their tactics.”

Article source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/22/magnets-drug-smuggling_n_6527134.html?utm_hp_ref=los-angeles&ir=Los+Angeles