Patrol: Cooler weather attracts smugglers

The arrival of fall and lower temperatures may also be ushering in the season of drug and immigrant smuggling in the Yuma area.

In three separate cases over the past week, Yuma Sector Border Patrol agents have seized a total of more than 800 pounds of marijuana carried on foot by smugglers from Mexico, the patrol said.

In the most recent of the smuggling attempts Tuesday night, a group of smugglers were surprised by agents as they tried to carry more than 300 pounds of pot across the border about 30 miles west of Lukeville.

The smugglers fled into nearby mountains, but left behind burlap sacks they had fashioned into backpacks in which they had carried the pot, the patrol said in a news release.

Agents tracked the group but determined it had returned to Mexico, the release said.

The pot weighed more than 360 pounds and had a total estimated street value of nearly $300,000, the patrol said.

While not predicting what will happen in the months ahead, Yuma Sector spokesman Agent Shaun Kuzia said drug and alien smuggling into the sector typically increases as summer wanes.

"It's just easier for them to cross the border when it's 75 degrees as opposed to 100 degrees," he said.

The patrol's Yuma Sector extends from the southeastern corner of California to the Yuma-Pima County line.

Tuesday night's seizure was the second made in the area since Saturday by agents assigned to the sector's Camp Grip forward operating base, the patrol said.

On Monday, Yuma Sector agents seized another load of pot carried across on foot by smugglers at San Luis, Ariz., said the patrol.

The pot from the three seizures weighed a total of 830 pounds and had a total street value of more than $664,000, Kuzia said.