A hot find: Customs officers in California seize $10 million worth of meth and cocaine hidden in jalapeño paste
By Ashley R. Williams, CNN
(CNN) — A 28-year-old man caught some heat with the US Customs and Border Protection in Southern California after officers say they found thousands of pounds of narcotics hidden in a jalapeño paste shipment.
The agency’s officers at the Otay Mesa Cargo Facility encountered a driver in a commercial tractor trailer Wednesday, carrying a shipment declared as jalapeño paste, according to a Thursday news release.
The vehicle, shipment and the driver, who officials said held a valid border crossing card, were referred for additional examination in a secondary inspection area.
There, a K9 unit scanned the shipment and alerted officers to conduct a more thorough check of the tractor trailer, according to the release.
“Upon further examination, CBP officers discovered and extracted a total of 349 suspicious packages from vats of jalapeño paste,” the release stated.
Testing and identification of the packages’ contents revealed them to contain methamphetamine weighing 3,161 pounds and cocaine weighing 522 pounds, according to the agency.
Images provided by the agency showed several large reddish-orange barrels holding the packages surrounded by jalapeño paste.
The estimated street value of the narcotics is more than $10.4 million, according to the release.
The driver was turned over to Homeland Security Investigations and the drugs and tractor trailer were seized, officials said.
The agency has seized more than 140,000 pounds of methamphetamine and more than 81,000 pounds of cocaine in 2023, federal data show.
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