Tucson Sector Border Patrol agents assigned to the Willcox Station arrested a woman Tuesday evening near Elfrida for smuggling marijuana, found inside the vehicle’s gas tank.
A 2001 Ford minivan approached the primary inspection lane at the Highway 191 immigration checkpoint where a canine alerted to an odor it was trained to detect. Agents referred the driver, a 24-year-old Mexican woman with a Border Crossing Card, for a secondary inspection.
Upon further inspection, agents found 29 bricks of marijuana within the door panels and also noticed the gas tank had been tampered with. Inside the fuel tank, agents found another 42 bricks of marijuana weighing slightly more than a pound each. The total combined weight of the narcotics was more than 75 pounds with a value of nearly $39,000.
Agents seized the marijuana and arrested the woman for narcotics smuggling.