McALLEN, Texas—Texas authorities caught an alleged drug trafficker who they say was on his way to smuggle more than 45 kilograms of cocaine from the Texas border to a northern city.
The arrest came after Texas Department of Public Safety agents learned about a red tractor trailer used to smuggle drugs past the U.S. Border Patrol checkpoints, court records obtained by Breitbart Texas revealed.
The DPS agents learned that the truck would arrive Monday evening at a produce company and set up a surveillance operation where they spotted the trailer driven by 35-year-old Jose Armando Bazan.
The agents then followed the vehicle to a local truck stop and then to the Falfurrias checkpoint, where a Border Patrol K-9 confirmed to authorities the presence of drugs inside the truck.
Since the X-ray machine at the checkpoint was not working, authorities took the truck and Bazan to the Hidalgo International Bridge, where authorities confirmed an aftermarket compartment hidden within a wall in the front part of the truck.
From the wall, authorities pulled multiple bricks of cocaine weighing 46.9 kilograms. During questioning Bazan allegedly told agents that he had been smuggling marijuana for several years but had just recently begun working for a different organization moving cocaine. The name of the criminal organization or their ties to a specific Mexican drug cartel was not specified in court records.
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