Officers nab smugglers, find drug cargo

PROTECTED CONTENT

If you’re a current subscriber, log in below. If you would like to subscribe, please click the subscribe tab above.

Lost your password?

Username and Password Help

Please enter your email and we will send your username and password to you.

← Back

US Border Patrol agents join Frio County sheriff’s deputies in examining the interior of a sport utility vehicle they had stopped beside the interstate on Tuesday last week while the undocumented immigrants they found traveling as passengers in the rear of the vehicle are cuffed and await processing. A cargo of narcotics was also found in the SUV; the incident was the latest in a series of smuggling offenses that ended in arrests along IH-35.

US Border Patrol agents with assistance from Frio County Sheriff’s Office deputies took five people into custody and uncovered a cache of drugs following a traffic stop near Pearsall on IH-35 Tuesday afternoon, December 1.
According to a report from the sheriff’s office, deputies stopped a black Ford sport utility vehicle driven by a female suspect with a male passenger just after 3 p.m. Tuesday.
During the stop, officers discovered three undocmented immigrants in the back of the SUV, the report indicated, and the driver told deputies that she was giving the unidentified individuals a ride to an unknown address “up north.”

A search of the vehicle led to the discovery of the drugs.
According to the report, Border Patrol agents took custody of the driver, passenger and undocumented immigrants.
The incident comes on the heels of a recent spike in the number of law enforcement encounters with undocumented immigrants, two similar incidents having occurred the previous day. Local cases in which officers have discovered undocumented immigrants in northbound vehicles on the interstate have revealed that the travelers included citizens of Honduras.
While Tuesday’s traffic stop ended without further incident, other cases have included high-speed pursuits through several South Texas counties. In one incident last week, the driver of a vehicle carrying immigrants crashed into fuel pumps at a convenience store on the outskirts of San Antonio; in another, a driver lost control of his sport utility vehicle at high speed upon leaving the interstate, causing the vehicle to flip at least four times near Moore. The driver and front-seat passenger were thrown from the vehicle and seriously injured in that crash, requiring airlift to San Antonio hospitals.
Agencies involved in recent pursuits of fugitives speeding north from the US border through Webb, Dimmit, La Salle, Frio, Medina, Atascosa and Bexar counties have included sheriff’s deputies, Border Patrol agents, city police and troopers of the Texas Highway Patrol.