Feds seize $3 million from smuggling suspects
More than $3 million in cash destined for Mexico was found in two cars in Escondido Tuesday, the largest cash seizure ever made by U.S. Border Patrol agents in San Diego County, authorities said Friday.
Two men, one a citizen of Mexico, the other of the United States, were arrested on charges of smuggling U.S. currency in their separate vehicles.
“It was quite a significant seizure,” said Border Patrol spokesman Mark Endicott. Stacks of crisp $100, $20, $10 and $1 bills were confiscated.
An agent followed a speeding Kia Forte from southbound Interstate 15 to West Country Club Lane about 1:45 p.m. Tuesday and pulled over the driver. The agent suspected that the Kia was being driven in tandem with a Volkswagen Passat that raced off while the Kia was stopped, Endicott said.
Agents found $33,880 inside eight vacuum-sealed bundles in the Kia’s center console. The driver, a 53-year-old American man, was arrested.
Endicott said agents fanned out looking for the Passat and found it abandoned on Bittersweet Street, a residential cul-de-sac. The suspected driver, a 41-year-old Mexican man, was discovered hiding in some brush.
Inside the trunk of his car were eight cardboard boxes containing a total of $3,018,000 in cash.
The two suspects were turned over to Homeland Security Investigations. They pleaded not guilty in federal court Wednesday to charges of willfully concealing currency in excess of $10,000 and intent to take the money out of the U.S., to Mexico.
“This amount of money represents the largest currency seizure ever in San Diego Sector,” Chief Patrol Agent Richard A. Barlow said in a statement. “The hard work and perseverance demonstrated by the involved agents was essential for this outcome.”
By comparison to other cash seizures in recent years, border agents at the San Onofre checkpoint found $291,000 in a car, tucked amid baby supplies and boxes of laundry detergent, in 2014. Another seizure that year netted $51,000, and in 2013, $43,000 was found in a car.