Photo byU.S. Customs & Border Protection

Federal Agents on two International Bridges connecting Texas and Mexico closed out the month of September with a pair of drug busts on the same day (September 28, 2024) that kept almost 18 million dollars worth of drugs off U.S. streets.

The largest of the two seizures occurred on the Pharr International Bridge when U.S. Customs & Border Protection (CBP) Officers decided to take a closer look at a large truckload of coconuts crossing the border into Texas from Reynosa, Mexico.

This is part of a one-ton load of meth hidden within a truckload of coconuts crossing the Pharr International Bridge (Sept. 28, 2024).Photo byU.S. Customs & Border Protection

Hidden under all those coconuts was a huge load of methamphetamine - 378 packages containing nearly 1,950 pounds of the drug - with a street value of $17,431,726.

The Mexican Cartels know that the Pharr International Bridge is a popular crossing point for shippers of fruit and vegetables into Texas and often use the trucks transporting them to conceal large loads of drugs.

Cartel smugglers wrapped a huge amount of meth in green wrappers to hide them within a load of lettuce at the Pharr Bridge (Aug. 1, 2024).Photo byU.S. Customs & Border Protection

That was the case on August 1, 2024, when CBP Officers discovered 3,429 pounds of meth bundled in green wrappers in hopes of blending in with a truckload of lettuce. That $48 million dollar seizure set a new record at the Pharr International Bridge.

In 2017 Cartel Smugglers disguised nearly 4,000 pounds of pot as key limes and tried to smuggle them across the Pharr Int'l. Bridge.Photo byU.S. Customs & Border Protection

In 2017, CBP Officers on the Pharr International Bridge discovered small bundles of marijuana (more than 34,000 of them) balled up in green paper mixed in with a real shipment of key limes.

After officers sorted the fake fruit from the real thing it weighed in at almost 4,000 pounds of marijuana worth more than $749,000.

4.4 pounds of heroin and 9.1 pounds of cocaine seized by CBP officers on the Eagle Pass International Bridge (September 28, 2024).Photo byU.S. Customs & Border Protection

Turning our attention back to more recent seizures, CBP Officers on the Eagle Pass International Bridge also reported a significant drug seizure on September 28, 2024.

The officers found two packages containing 4.4 pounds of heroin and four packages containing 9.1 pounds of cocaine hidden within the quarter panels of a van crossing into Texas from Piedras Negras, Mexico. The narcotics had a combined estimated street value of $212,209.32

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