STERLING, Va. – A Guatemalan woman is facing felony drug possession charges after U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers discovered nearly two pounds of heroin concealed in a courier shipment at Washington Dulles International Airport on Sunday.
Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority Police officers arrested Maria Jose Recinos Rodriguez, 31 and charged her with felony narcotics possession with intent to distribute charges.
Recinos Rodriguez arrived Sunday morning from Guatemala City, Guatemala, and was referred as a food courier to a routine secondary examination. Transnational criminal organizations sometimes attempt to smuggle dangerous drugs in courier shipments.
During the examination, CBP officers discovered three packages and four smaller sleeves concealed inside three bags of coffee that container a white substance. Officers tested the substances with a handheld elemental isotope analysis tool and identified the substance as heroin hydrochloride.
The heroin weighed a combined 798 grams, or one pound, 12 ounces. It has a street value of about $55,000.
CBP officers turned Recinos Rodriguez and the heroin over to Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority Police officers.
Criminal charges are merely allegations. Defendants are presumed innocent unless proven guilty in a court of law.
“Drug trafficking organizations attempt all manner of concealment to smuggle their dangerous drugs unto the United States, including concealing it inside a seemingly innocuous courier shipment of food, but Customs and Border Protection officers prove time and again their proficiency in exposing those concealment methods,” said Marc E. Calixte, CBP’s Area Port Director for the Area Port of Washington, D.C. “CBP continues to work with our law enforcement partners to help protect our communities from the scourge of heroin and to help hold perpetrators accountable.”
Every day, CBP officers and agents seized an average of 2,339 pounds of dangerous drugs last year at and between our nation’s air, sea, and land ports of entry. See CBP’s enforcement stats to see what other dangerous drugs CBP is encountering at our nation’s borders.
CBP’s border security mission is led at our nation’s Ports of Entry by CBP officers and agriculture specialists from the Office of Field Operations. CBP screens international travelers and cargo and searches for illicit narcotics, unreported currency, weapons, counterfeit consumer goods, prohibited agriculture, invasive weeds and pests, and other illicit products that could potentially harm the American public, U.S. businesses, and our nation’s safety and economic vitality.
See what CBP accomplished during “A Typical Day” in 2023. Learn more at www.CBP.gov.
Follow the Director of CBP’s Baltimore Field Office on Twitter at @DFOBaltimore for breaking news, current events, human interest stories and photos, and CBP’s Office of Field Operations on Instagram at @cbpfieldops.
