Border Patrol Seizes $10 Million Worth of Narcotics Hidden in Jalapeño Paste

Things got a bit spicy for border patrol officers in San Diego last week.

It was there, near the United States-Mexico border, that officers discovered more than $10 million worth of hard narcotics that had been hidden in a shipment of jalapeño paste.

The bust went down on December 13.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers said that they encountered a 28-year-old male driving a commercial tractor-trailer with a shipment manifested as jalapeño paste” at the Otay Mesa Cargo Facility.

“The driver, a valid border crossing card holder, was referred for further examination by CBP officers along with the tractor-trailer and shipment,” the agency said in a press release issued this week. 

“In the secondary inspection area, a CBP K-9 unit screened the shipment and alerted officers to examine the trailer more closely. Upon further examination, CBP officers discovered and extracted a total of 349 suspicious packages from vats of jalapeño paste. The contents of the packages were tested and identified as methamphetamine with a weight of 3,161.43 pounds and cocaine with a weight of 522.50 pounds,” the press releases continued.

As Customs and Border Protection spokesperson Michael Scappechio told the Los Angeles Times: “It was an extremely spicy situation.” 

“You never really know what you’re dealing with just in terms of dangerous narcotics and then you throw in there all that organic material; we had to break out the full [personal protective equipment],” Scappechio said.

“We won’t expose the reasons that led to the further examination,” Scappechio added, “but agent suspicion is often used.”

Rosa Hernandez, the director at the Otay Mesa Port, credited the unit’s K-9 teams for the bust.

“Our K-9 teams are an invaluable component of our counter-narcotics operations, providing a reliable and unequaled mobile detection capability,” said Hernandez “By implementing local operations under Operation Apollo and CBP’s Strategy to Combat Fentanyl and other Synthetic Drugs, we will continue to secure communities and stifle the growth of transnational criminal organizations, one seizure after another.”

According to local news station NBC San Diego, the “narcotics-in-jalapeño-paste seizure was just one of many successful drug busts in the border town recently.”

The United States Coast Guard said that it seized 18,219 pounds of cocaine, with an estimated street value of more than $239 million in the Pacific Ocean that was offloaded in San Diego earlier this month.

According to the Coast Guard, the offload was the “result of six separate suspected drug smuggling vessel interdictions or events off the coasts of Mexico and Central and South America by the Coast Guard Cutters Waesche and Active in November.”

According to the Coast Guard, the Waesche “is one of four Legend-class national security cutters homeported in Alameda, California.” National security cutters “can operate in the most demanding open ocean environments, including the hazardous fisheries of the North Pacific and the vast approaches of the Southern Pacific, where a large amount of narcotics traffic occurs,” the Coast Guard said.

“The biggest of the six interdictions was the most recent interdiction, occurring Nov. 20, which was an interdiction of a self-propelled semi-submersible (SPSS) carrying more than 5,500 pounds of cocaine. The interdiction of the SPSS was the first in the Eastern Pacific since 2020,” the Coast Guard said in a press release.

Capt. Robert Mohr, commanding officer of the Waesche, said that all “four of our interdictions on this patrol are crucial to the Coast Guard’s efforts to keep illicit drugs off the streets, but our last interdiction of a semi-submersible vessel was noteworthy since it was the first semi-submersible interdicted in the Eastern Pacific in over three years.” 

“I am extremely impressed with the crew’s dedication throughout this dynamic patrol. They overcame multiple challenges with collective hard work, ingenuity, and positive attitudes to keep us in pursuit of these cartels and their dangerous drugs. A successful patrol like this one is rewarding and leads to better retention and recruiting efforts because everybody feels a sense of accomplishment,” Mohr said.

Vice Adm. Andrew Tiongson, commander, U.S. Coast Guard Pacific Area, said he was “proud of the unity of effort displayed by U.S. Coast Guard members aboard the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Waesche and our partners who stopped these narcotics from entering our Nation through the maritime domain.”

The Coast Guard said that multiple agencies, including the Departments of Defense, Justice, and Homeland Security, “collaborate in the effort to combat transnational organized crime. The Coast Guard, Navy, Customs and Border Protection, FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, along with allied and international partner agencies, all play a role in counternarcotic operations.” 

“The fight against drug cartels in the Eastern Pacific Ocean requires unity of effort in all phases, from detection and monitoring to interdictions and criminal prosecutions,” the press release said.