Would-be smugglers try to toss cannabis over border wall

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Rio Grande Valley Sector Border Patrol (RGV) agents in Brownsville, Tex. had little trouble identifying the recipient of cannabis smuggled from Mexico into the U.S. after a field agent and a camera operator watched several suspects try to climb a border wall toting the drug.

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The operator spied several people trying to scale the wall that abuts Oklahoma Rd. in Brownsville at 11:15 am on Sept. 14, My RGV News cites a criminal complaint as stating. “The subjects were seen climbing the border wall and then throwing the bundles of suspected marijuana to the north side of the wall,” it notes.

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That’s when the agent took cover nearby.

Unfortunately for the would-be smugglers, just one managed to successfully scale the wall and make it to the other side with two illicit bundles before running towards a vehicle parked there, My RGV News reports.

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At that point, the agent emerged from hiding, prompting the person who had scaled the wall to drop the drugs, climb the wall once again and escape.

The driver, for his part, opted to make a U-turn and sped off. The 25-year-old was apprehended a short time later after crashing into two vehicles and trying to flee, later telling agents he expected to be paid $265 for each bundle collected.

At the base of the wall, agents found six bundles of weed weighing 64 kilograms.

Border walls are no strangers to smuggling bids. About a month earlier, RGV agents disrupted two human smuggling events and recovered 75 kg of weed.

Again, camera operators observed several subjects scaling the border wall near Brownsville on Aug. 4 with several bundles of cannabis in tow.

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Arriving at the scene, agents saw a Chevrolet Tahoe speed off, sparking a vehicle pursuit. While trying to evade the authorities, the driver struck another vehicle and the chase ended when the driver drove into a parking lot.

The recovered bundles of had an estimated street value of more than $177,000.

In February 2021, an agent saw a male subject by the border wall near Brownsville and officers approached the area, causing the person to abandon the single bundle of cannabis weighing 21 kg worth an estimated $49,000 and flee towards the Rio Grande and into Mexico.

Per data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection, its RGVBP Sector seized more than 9,525 kilograms of narcotics from Oct. 1, 2021 through Mar. 2022.

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