Border agents find $10 million worth of meth and cocaine hidden in jalapeño paste shipment

More than $10 million worth of hard narcotics hidden in a jalapeño paste shipment was discovered by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers in San Diego last week.

A CBP press release said its officers referred a 28-year-old man who was driving a commercial tractor-trailer with a shipment marked as jalapeño paste for a secondary screening at the Otay Mesa Cargo Facility in San Diego, Calif on Dec. 13. During that secondary screening, K-9 units alerted officers for a further inspection of the cargo.

Upon further investigation, CBP officers removed 349 “suspicious packages” from the containers holding the jalapeño paste. The agency said there were 3,161.43 pounds of methamphetamine and 522.5 pounds of cocaine, according to the press release.

The contents of the packages were seized by the law enforcement officers and the man was turned over to Homeland Security Investigations for “further processing,” the press release noted.

Rosa Hernandez, the director of the Otay Mesa Port, said in a statement that the agency “will continue to secure communities and stifle the growth of transnational criminal organizations, one seizure after another.”

“Our K-9 teams are an invaluable component of our counter-narcotics operations, providing a reliable and unequalled mobile detection capability,” Hernandez said in a statement.

Republican lawmakers and officials have been sounding the alarm over border security for months as many of them blame the Biden administration for the recent influx of migrants coming into the United States.

Now, Republicans have said they will not vote for a supplemental aid package for Ukraine and Israel without stronger border provisions. Senate negotiators have been huddled together for weeks as they attempt to come to an agreement on border security before the end of the year.

Despite some lawmakers and the White House saying they are making process on the border talks, no timeline has been finalized on when a deal may be agreed on.