Patrol says 'brazen' pot-smuggling attempt stopped

A group of smugglers didn't exactly keep a low profile this week as they tried to moved nearly 300 pounds of pot from Mexico into Yuma County, the Border Patrol said.

What the patrol called a "brazen" smuggling attempt led to the seizure of the pot and a pickup, and the arrest of the woman driving the truck, the patrol said.

The bust came after Border Patrol agents saw the late-model Chevrolet pickup turning north from County 14th Street onto the Colorado River levee road about 8 p.m. Wednesday, the patrol said.

With its headlights off, the truck continued along the road to a point just north of County 13th, where a group of people loaded six plastic-wrapped bundles of marijuana into the truck bed, the patrol said.

Agents stopped the truck and arrested the driver after the pickup turned around and began traveling toward County 14th, the patrol said.

The pot weighed 282 pounds of marijuana and had an estimated street value of $225,600, patrol said.

The attempt was brazen, said Supervisory Agent Ben Vik, because the smugglers seemed unconcerned about the likelihood of being detected through patrol surveillance.

"It was right out in the open, nearly twilight," he said. "They didn't try to hide the fact they were driving on the levee."

Through the first eight months of the 2009 fiscal year that began Oct. 1, agents seized a total of 40,656 pounds of marijuana smuggled into the Yuma Sector, which extends from the southeastern tip of California to the Yuma-Pima County line. The total value of the pot was estimated at $32.5 million.

That's up from the same period in fiscal 2008, when Yuma Sector agents seized 25,167 pounds valued at $20.1 million.