Texas Border: $17M+ Drug Seizures Crush Cartels
Small Kingsville Border Patrol Station scores huge cartel cocaine busts
South Texas Border Patrol Agents have had a busy week at the expense of Mexican Cartels attempting to move large amounts of drugs through their checkpoint in Sarita on US Highway 77.
They've seized more than $17 million worth of cocaine in three separate busts there in recent days - all by the relatively small “Kingsville, Texas” Border Patrol Station - whose primary responsibility is operating a checkpoint on US Highway 77 just shy of 100 miles north of the southern border with Mexico.
The largest of those busts resulted in the seizure of 287 pounds of cocaine worth $9,068,870 - which the Border Patrol Chief of the Rio Grande Valley Sector credited to the keen nose of a K-9 officer directed by his handler at the Sarita, Texas checkpoint.
The second largest bust was nothing to sneeze at either --- more than 163 pounds of cartel cocaine valued at $5,150,612! All this, again, seized at that same checkpoint in Sarita (Kenedy County) on US Highway 77.
The third most significant load of seized cartel cocaine weighed in at more than 111 pounds of the drug, worth $3,507,472. The Rio Grande Valley Sector Border Patrol Chief says this bust resulted from agents assigned to the Kingsville station (which is responsible for staffing the Sarita checkpoint) making a traffic stop based on "working intel."
Those three busts total up to more than 560 pounds of cocaine worth $17.726.954.
They also contributed to a large part of the Border Patrol's nationwide weekend cocaine seizures of more than 727 pounds of the drug worth more than 23 million dollars.
How big of a dent do you think these busts made in the cartels' smuggling operations?
Share your opinions in the comments section of this article.
Abrazos,
Jack Beavers
