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Drug Smugglers @ Santa Rosa Island! Heh???
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 03/09/2010 10:54 PM
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ChannelIslands
Joined: 06/26/2007
Posts: 4172
Location: The Channel Islands
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Drug Smugglers @ Santa Rosa Island! Heh???
It's true. That's some crazy sheet! They should of shot for Smugglers Cove.. LOL
Agents report finding ton of marijuana, beached smugglers on local island
Federal agents arrested four Mexican citizens and seized more than a ton of marijuana that smugglers tried to hide on Santa Rosa Island after their boat beached there, U.S. Department of Homeland Security officials said Tuesday.
A Navy helicopter Thursday spotted a type of lightweight Mexican boat typically used for smuggling narcotics heading north about 46 miles off the coast. Helicopters and vessels from Homeland Security’s San Diego Maritime Unified Command continued to search the area, and Saturday they spotted fuel canisters and wreckage of the “panga” boat on a Santa Rosa Island beach, officials said.
Agents searched the island and found 46 bundles of marijuana weighing a total of 2,448 pounds under some vegetation in a canyon. They also found four men hiding in nearby brush, officials said.
The four were arrested and await arraignment for alleged smuggling, officials said. Their names and ages were not released Tuesday.
The bundles of marijuana were valued at more than $1.2 million, said Jackie Dizdul, a spokeswoman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
While such seizures are not uncommon near the Mexican border, the location of this incident was unusual, Dizdul said. “It’s probably been decades since we’ve had a seizure this far north of the border,” she said.
Channel Islands National Park spokeswoman Yvonne Menard said the park had never received a report of a drug smuggler or pot cultivator on the islands. The only incident even remotely close was when three juveniles stole a boat from Channel Islands Harbor in 1989 and ran aground on Santa Rosa Island on their way to Hawaii.
Authorities have recently seen an increase in smuggling along the coast, which appears related to increased border enforcement on land, Dizdul said.
The San Diego task force made 430 drug and human smuggling arrests during the 2009 fiscal year, compared with 230 the previous fiscal year, according to Customs and Border Protection.
On March 3, agents stopped a boat filled with nearly a half-ton of marijuana in Mission Bay in San Diego, officials said.
— Staff writer Zeke Barlow contributed to this report.
Link: http://www.vcstar.com/news/2010/mar/09/agents-find-a-ton-of-marijuana-left-by-smugglers/
Chris
It's not where you came from, but where you are going that counts!
This post edited by ChannelIslands 03/10/2010
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03/10/2010 02:34 PM
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SteveT
Joined: 05/11/2007
Posts: 726
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re: Drug Smugglers @ Santa Rosa Island! Heh???
Glad they got caught, I just read that they were paid 10K to deliver the pot and were given a GPS to guide them, lol!
Anyways, that stuff they smuggle up here in those big bales is a bunch of crappy, seedy, stemy, leafy junk, I don't know why it's still marketable.
SteveT
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03/10/2010 08:44 PM
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TunaChuck
Moderator
Joined: 12/31/1999
Posts: 1244
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re: Drug Smugglers @ Santa Rosa Island! Heh???
Haha Steve,
Just showed the story to my lady. her response, "Why on earth would they bring pot from mexico to CA?"
-Chuck-
Allcoast Field Editor Malibu to Santa Barbara
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