Border drug busts

Federal agents at San Diego border crossings seized
1,365 pounds of marijuana hidden in a shipment of frozen fish and 117 pounds of
methamphetamine stuffed into a pickup trucks tires in separate drug busts,
authorities said on Tuesday.

In the first of Monday's busts, about 5 a.m., drug-sniffing dogs at the
San Ysidro port of entry alerted officers to a 1998 Chevrolet 1500 pickup
truck, and officers took the driver and the truck for further screening, CBP
officials said.

The truck was put through the port's imaging system, which flagged
anomalies its tires.

Officers pulled 24 wrapped packages of methamphetamine — with an
estimated street value of $2.3 million — from metal frames within the tires.

The driver, a 22-year-old male U.S. citizen whose name was not made
public, was arrested and taken to the Metropolitan Correctional Center,
authorities said. The vehicle and the drugs were seized by the CBP.

About 6:30 a.m. Monday, a CBP officer spotted a man in a 2007
International bobtail truck trying to pass through the Otay Mesa cargo facility
with the shipment of fish, and directed its driver, a 30-year-old Mexican to a
dock for a more in-depth inspection, according to the CBP.

The port's imaging system found 173 packages of pot under the top layers
of fish, according to the CBP. Officers seized the pot, worth about $614,000
on the street, along with the truck, authorities said.

That driver, whose name also was withheld, was also arrested and taken
to the same federal lockup, according to the CBP.