Border Patrol San Diego Sector agents seized more than 100 pounds of fentanyl pills this week at a station north of Camp Pendleton.
The search and seizure, the second of two significant fentanyl finds in the last two weeks, took place near Avenida Vista Hermosa on Interstate 5, according to a news release from U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
At approximately 4 a.m. Thursday, agents assigned to the San Clemente Border Patrol Station stopped a suspicious silver sedan, driven by an adult male U.S. citizen, on I-5.
A Border Patrol K9 team trained to detect the presence of concealed people, narcotics and other contraband conducted a non-intrusive search of the vehicle and alerted agents to search further.
Agents who inspected the vehicle’s trunk discovered plastic-wrapped packages inside of black trash bags, consistent with how smuggled narcotics are transported. The suspected narcotics, vehicle and driver were sent to a nearby Border Patrol station for further investigation.
At the station, agents removed 40 cellophane-wrapped packages containing blue pills. They tested the pills and received a positive result for fentanyl. The total weight of the fentanyl pills was 105 pounds.
The driver and the drugs were turned over to the Orange County Sheriff’s Department for prosecution on state charges. Rhe vehicle was seized by U.S. Border Patrol.
Border Patrol agents made another large fentanyl seizure at an Interstate 8 checkpoint near Pine Valley on Sept. 5.
After referring a male driver, 22, to secondary inspection, agents discovered nine cellophane bags containing suspicious blue pills.
They tested the pills and found they contained fentanyl. The pills weighed approximately 168 pounds with an estimated street value of $1.3 million. The narcotics were turned over to the San Diego Border Crime Suppression Team; the driver, a U.S. citizen, is expected to face state charges.
Nearly half of the approximately 2,800 pounds of fentanyl seized by the Border Patrol in the 2023 fiscal year was found in the San Diego Sector, which encompasses approximately 60 linear miles of international border with Mexico beginning at Imperial Beach.
Local Border Patrol agents have seized approximately 700 pounds of fentanyl in the current fiscal year.
