US Customs & Border Protection (CBP) is reporting a massive increase in seizures of cartel drugs, guns, and money in South Texas. During the 2025 Fiscal Year (which ended on September 30), its agents racked up a 62% increase in seizures along the Rio Grande from Brownsville to Del Rio - and their battle against the cartels shows no sign of slowing down.
This week, the agency announced its officers at the Hidalgo, Texas, Port of Entry discovered 346 pounds of cocaine hidden in a huge semi-truck shipment of fresh broccoli arriving from Mexico.
And, on December 12, 2025, CBP Officers at that same International Bridge discovered 1,156.32 pounds of meth hidden within a semi-truck load of oat flakes! That seizure alone represented a $10.3 million loss for one of the Mexican Cartels, based on the street price of the drug.
Those South Texas CBP Officers aren’t just going after cartel drugs. During the 2025 Fiscal Year, they also stopped 514 weapons and 54,896 rounds of ammunition from being smuggled from Texas into Mexico to arm the cartels.
If all that firepower meant for the cartels has you thinking this area of South Texas might be a dangerous place to be a law enforcement officer, you would be right.
This is the same area of Texas where a Border Patrol Agent shot and killed a cartel smuggler last week, who attacked him after federal agents interrupted an attempt to bring drugs into the US along the Rio Grande.
This is also the same stretch of the Rio Grande where cartel gunmen fired on Border Patrol Agents on January 27, 2025:
In addition to all those guns and ammo, South Texas CBP Agents have seized $5.4 million in cartel cash that smugglers attempted to return to them in Mexico, which is likely profits from their illegal operations in the U.S.
But it is the drug seizures that are really off the charts:
3,453 pounds of marijuana
12,397 pounds of cocaine
54,994 pounds of methamphetamine
236 pounds of heroin
196 pounds of fentanyl
That’s 71,733 pounds of narcotics, representing a combined street value of nearly $674 million in cartel profits, had the CBP not stopped the drugs from entering the U.S.
How big of a dent do you believe these seizures have made on cartel smuggling operations?
Share your thoughts in the comments to this article.
Abrazos,
Jack Beavers
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I had to do a double-take on one of the CBP photos - whew! I thought the broccoli was a strange hybrid marijuana plant.
Great story! Thanks for the coverage!
dave