Border Patrol agents found about $1.1 million worth of cocaine in an SUV during a traffic stop on Interstate 5 in far North County, agency officials said Monday.
Just after 2:35 p.m. Feb. 18, agents pulled over a “suspicious vehicle” on I-5 near the San Clemente Border Patrol Checkpoint, the agency said in a news release. They did not say what it was about the SUV that caught the agents’ attention.
A trained drug-sniffing dog was brought to the scene, and the dog got a hit on the vehicle. A search turned up 55 cellophane-wrapped packages tucked into an aftermarket compartment in the floorboard, authorities said.
The find weighed in at nearly 143 pounds. The Drug Enforcement Administration took custody of the cocaine and the driver.
It was the first of two big finds during traffic stops by Border Patrol agents with the San Diego Sector last week. The following day, just before 9:30 a.m. Feb. 19, agents stopped a sedan at the Interstate 15 Temecula Border Patrol Checkpoint, just across the San Diego-Riverside County line.
A drug-sniffing dog got a hit on the sedan, and agents found a backpack on the floor of the front passenger’s side. Inside the backpack, the agency said, were eight bundles of fentanyl.
It weighed about 18.5 pounds. Border Patrol officials said it was worth about $143,000.
The driver, the drugs and the sedan were turned over to the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department.
