U.S. Border Patrol agents from the Willcox Station assisted an Arizona Department of Public Safety trooper in apprehending two Tucson men who fled during a traffic stop Friday afternoon near Whetstone.
A Border Patrol agent assisted an Arizona DPS trooper with a traffic stop near the intersection of State Route 80 and State Route 90. As the trooper attempted to stop a Ford F-250, the driver fled while a male passenger jumped out of the moving vehicle.
During the pursuit, the driver drove through a barbed wire fence and continued to flee off-road. The assisting agent followed the truck’s trail and soon found it abandoned near a residential area. At that point, the Border Patrol agent used his canine partner and found multiple bricks of marijuana in the truck weighing a combined 156 pounds and worth an estimated $78,000.
After additional agents arrived to secure the drugs, the agent used his canine partner to track and apprehend the driver, later identified as a 20-year-old U.S. citizen.
Other Border Patrol agents tracked and apprehended the passenger, identified as a 42-year-old U.S. citizen, found a short distance off the highway.
Agents turned the two men, vehicle and marijuana over to Homeland Security Investigations for processing.
Federal law allows agents to charge individuals by complaint, a method that allows the filing of charges for criminal activity without inferring guilt. An individual is presumed innocent unless and until competent evidence is presented to a jury that establishes guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.