Monday, January 10, 2011

Still another reason to close the border to Mexican trucks: Drug smuggling

Mexican drug traffickers are now using legitimate trucking companies to ship illegal drugs to the U.S. -- unbeknownst to the driver, of course.

A truck driver for Ainsworth Trucking in Texas found out the hard way just last week. According to the Corpus Christi Caller Times,
...a driver of one (Ainsworth's) semi-tractor trailers felt his load shift and wanted it checked, said Lt. William Edge, sheriff’s investigator. He was hauling a load of material from the Rio Grande Valley bound for Houston.
A sniffer dog found eight bundles -- 135 pounds -- of marijuana inside the trailer. The sheriff said the trucking company is innocent. "Lately some drug traffickers are using smaller loads with legitimate companies," he told the Caller Times. 

Apparently the driver had been told to call a phone number when he got close to Houston. But when he was late calling them, the phone went dead. The sheriff figured the driver would probably be told to drop the cargo off an an empty warehouse.

In related news, Iowa Congressman Bruce Braley sent a letter to President Obama on Friday asking him to reconsider the plan to open the border. Braley wrote,
This proposal is dangerous and it threatens jobs here in Iowa,” said Congressman Braley. “When we have so many hard-working Americans out of a job, I cannot support a program that puts Mexican workers and truckers first.