Ton Of Pot Found In Hot Sauce Shipment At The Border

Border patrol agents discovered some hot and spicy contraband last Friday when they came across a tractor trailer filled with hot sauce and marijuana, reports CBS Los Angeles.

The weed, valued at $1.4 million, was discovered at the Otay Mesa cargo facility near San Diego, according to KTLA.

Suspecting that something was amiss, custom officials ran the vehicle through the port’s x-ray system and found “inconsistencies in the cargo,” notes Fox News. After unloading the entire shipment, U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers found 2,330 pounds of pot hidden amongst hot sauce bottles — a little over one ton of the drug.

Smuggling marijuana with hot sauce sounds like a stoner’s dream (just add a burrito and that’s a pretty good Friday evening), but it doesn’t even come close to some of the weirdest ways to traffic drugs across the border. The List Cafe discusses 10 “creative” ways to smuggle narcotics; real life examples include hiding cocaine under your foreskin and in the stomachs of live boa constrictors. Another listicle from Top10Kid.com features sad examples of surgically implanted drugs in puppies and people, as well as “heroin-covered cocaine.” Read these cautionary tales and alternate between marveling at drug traffickers‘ daring and stupidity.

Related articles

• Marijuana discovered in hot sauce shipment (abclocal.go.com)
• Hot Sauce Shipment Yields Massive Marijuana Bust (foxnews.com)

High School Students Could Face Charges For Passing Out Pot Brownies At Band Camp

Three high school students allegedly passed out marijuana-laced brownies to 23 unwitting classmates at a summer band camp in O’Fallon, Illinois. The students who ate the brownies did not know the brownies contained any drugs, but also didn’t notice any effects from the marijuana.

The three student “bakers” could face criminal charges — giving out drugs to unknowing recipients can obviously be a health hazard. The police learned of the incident after a student told a school official.

Police Chief John Betten remarked that band camp is “one of the last places where you would expect something like this to happen.”

Tell that to Alyson Hannigan.

Related articles

• Alyson Hannigan: Band Camp Babe (girls.gunaxin.com)
• Teens Pass Out Pot Brownies At Best Band Camp Ever [Drugs] (jezebel.com)

LAPD seizes 9 kilos of coke, 300 pot plants and weapons in raid

Los Angeles police seized 9 kilos of cocaine, 300 marijuana plants, several weapons and arrested six people as part of an investigation of an interstate drug-trafficking operation allegedly run out of a Reseda medical marijuana dispensary, authorities said Thursday.

The arrests and seizures were made Wednesday as officers prepared to serve a search at the White Oak Healing Center, the Los Angeles Police Department said.

The probe was launched last year after a fatal shooting at the center that had the “appearances of an organized-crime-style hit,” the LAPD said in a statement. 

That investigation led to information allegedly implicating the center’s owner, Raymond George, 60, in the transportation and sale of marijuana and cocaine between Los Angeles and Cleveland, according to the LAPD.

George was among the six people arrested by officers, who also seized 120 oxycodone pills, a loaded AK-47 assault rifle, two handguns and more that $6,600 in cash, police said. The pot plants were inside the dispensary, which housed a sophisticated growing system.

Police identified the others who were arrested as Haiz Carrera, 51, Reginald Beijer, 59, Francisco Franco, 41, Francisco Vallejo, 30, and Alfredo Gonzalez, 51.

Related articles

• Guns, ammunition seized at L.A. animal shelters as probe expands (latimesblogs.latimes.com)
• Marijuana seized in police raid (windsorstar.com)
• Feds Bust $6M Marijuana Operation On State Land (smokesomething.wordpress.com)

Feds Bust $6M Marijuana Operation On State Land

HONOLULU — Federal authorities arrested five people, including a father and two sons, who they said cultivated thousands of marijuana plants on state land on Kauai.

 

The marijuana farm is in an extremely remote area at the foot of Mount Waialeale, halfway up a ridge.

 

The case started with a tip to Kauai police, who went up in their helicopter and spotted thousands of marijuana plants from the air.

 

The people charged cultivated marijuana full-time, authorities said.

 

Images from federal video surveillance from July and August showed people cultivating marijuana plants in rugged, mountainous terrain in what is known as the “Blue Hole” area on Kauai.

 

The feds seized nearly 6,000 pot plants worth about $6 million on the street. It is one of the largest marijuana busts in Hawaii‘s history, officials said.

 

“The large amount of drugs involved in this investigation shows that this operation was organized and conducted by this group for profit,” Hawaii U.S. Attorney Ed Kubo said.

 

The feds arrested and charged five people with manufacturing marijuana, including Edward H. Holland, 55; his son Robert Jason Bihm, Bihm’s wife, Melissa Ann; Holland’s other son, Ryan Edward Bihm; and Mark Steven Darling, 52.

 

“At one point, officers saw several of the defendants even smoking their harvested marijuana during their breaks from their labors,” Kubo said.

 

The pot cultivation site is at the end of a remote valley, part way up a ridge, prosecutors said. It takes one hour each way to drive and then hike in, according to authorities.

 

“You’re talking about a considerable effort to conduct this cultivation operation, and, more or less, during the growing season, you’re talking about a full-time job,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Kawahara said.

 

Feds also seized six trucks belonging to the group.

 

The hillside marijuana farm has been used for at least several years, investigators said.

 

Authorities said they expect to arrest more people in “Operation Green Stream.”

 

“We will continue to identify other members of this organization and take every penny that they earned illegally,” said Tony Williams of the Drug Enforcement Agency.

 

The group members could get 10 years to life in federal prison if they are convicted. However, the man authorities fingered as the ringleader, Edward Holland, could get at least 20 years in prison because he already served a four-year sentence in another pot case.

 

Holland was convicted of marijuana distribution in 1991
.

Couple busted for $33,000 worth of marijuana

The North Charleston Police Department arrested two people after investigators say they found more than $33,000 worth of marijuana at a home in North Charleston.

Authorities charged 69-year-old Oliver Kennedy and 63-year-old Lavern Kennedy with possession with intent to distribute marijuana.

The couple was arrested after NCPD‘s narcotics unit executed a search warrant at the suspects’ home on Park Place South in the Olde Village Community.

A police report states that officers located 3,362.6 grams of marijuana, with an estimated street value of $33,620, along with several items consistent with packaging, weighing and using the illegal substance.

In addition, five long guns were also located inside the residence.

Mexican authorities find massive marijuana plantation

 

Tijuana, Mexico (CNN) — Hidden between tomato stalks, the Mexican army found what officials describe as the largest marijuana plantation in the nation, a top military official announced Thursday.

Gen. Alfonso Duarte Mugica said the plantation six hours south of Tijuana is 168 times larger than the soccer field in Mexico City’s Azteca Stadium. It spans for 120 hectares (about 300 acres), he said.

Tomatoes growing there hid marijuana plants that were up to 2.5 meters (8.2. feet) tall, Duarte said.

Authorities detained six people this week during the operation to seize the field, which is located in the area of Ensenada, Baja California.

The takeover means drug traffickers will not receive 1.8 billion pesos ($153 million), he said, apparently referring to an estimated sales value of the crop.

Duarte said 250 soldiers will destroy the drugs seized within the next week.

Since Mexican President Felipe Calderon‘s administration began in December 2006, officials have destroyed more than 83,251 hectares (206,000 acres) of marijuana, according to a report from the country’s defense department.