GULFPORT, Mississippi— A New Orleans Sector K9 unit, working with the Southern Mississippi Metro Enforcement Team (SMMET) arrested two Honduran nationals and seized six kilos of narcotics worth $170,000.
On Sept. 16 at 2:50 a.m., a Gulfport Station agent observed a suspicious vehicle heading westbound on I-10 in Ocean Springs, Mississippi and conducted a vehicle stop. A records check revealed the registered owner of the 2005 Ford F150 had ties to a narcotics smuggling ring operating out of the Rio Grande Valley Sector.
In conversation, the agent detected inconsistencies in the two vehicle occupants’ purpose of travel and travel history. Luckily, the agent’s partner had a keen sense of smell and alerted to an odor near the rear passenger door of the truck. Under the rear passenger seat the agent discovered a large plastic bag containing fifty packages of methamphetamine, cocaine, and fentanyl weighing 6 kilograms and worth $170,000.
The FBI, a SMMET investigative partner, took over prosecution of the case and the two Hondurans were held at the Harrison County Jail.
“Every county is a border county,” said Jason Schneider, Chief Patrol Agent of New Orleans Sector. “But by working with state, local and Federal partners we were able to bust a transnational criminal organization from The Rio Grande Valley in the Texas borderlands over 750 miles away.”
To prevent the illicit smuggling of humans, drugs, and other contraband, the U.S. Border Patrol maintains a high level of vigilance on corridors of egress away from our Nation’s borders. New Orleans Sector protects the nation as a line of defense when contraband and illegal border crosser’s move east through the gulf south states after their entry along the southwest border.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection is the unified border agency within the Department of Homeland Security charged with the management, control and protection of our nation’s borders at and between official ports of entry. CBP is charged with securing the borders of the United States while enforcing hundreds of laws and facilitating lawful trade and travel.