Crime & Safety
Border Patrol: Man Tries to Smuggle Cocaine, Heroin In Convertible Top Near Temecula
Border Patrol agents out of the Temecula Valley area found 21.50 pounds of cocaine and another 10.80 pounds of heroin hidden inside the man's car, according to a spokesman.
A Los Angeles man is accused of hiding several bundles of narcotics in his convertible car as he tried to smuggle the drugs along I-15, according to local border patrol agents.
The unidentified man was stopped on Wednesday around 11 a.m. while traveling north on the interstate, near State Highway 395, according to San Diego Sector U.S. Border Patrol Spokesman Gerardo U. Gutierrez.
"After a Border Patrol K-9 team was summoned to the scene and alerted to the man’s 2004 convertible Volvo, agents conducted a search and detected several packages stuffed inside the folded convertible top," Guiterrez said in a statement.
The 27-year-old man apparently told agents he couldn't raise the top.
"Agents then transported the vehicle to the Newton-Azrak Border Patrol Station in Murrieta, where they removed twelve cellophane-wrapped bundles from the convertible compartment," Gutierrez said. "Eight packages were filled with cocaine and four were filled with heroin."
In total, there were 21.50 pounds of cocaine-- valued at $279,500-- and 10.80 pounds of heroin-- worth $129,600, according to Gutierrez.
The man, whose identity wasn't released, was turned over to the DEA, and his vehicle was seized by the U.S. Border Patrol.
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