‘Nervous’ Driver’s Van Yields 402 Pounds of Cocaine

The nervousness of a motorist crossing the international border early Tuesday led U.S. Customs agents to search the man’s van, where they found 402 pounds of cocaine behind a fake wall, officials said Tuesday.

The cocaine, with an estimated street value of $6.4 million, was found in a false wall separating the front seats from the rear of the van, officials said.

A customs agent decided to search the van after he noticed that driver Roberto Maestre, 31, of San Diego, seemed nervous while waiting to enter the country at the checkpoint at about 4 a.m., officials said.

“It (the inspection) was based on training and observational techniques and the ability to determine manifestations of stress,” said Chief Customs Inspector Rudy Villegas.

When the Customs inspector decided to conduct a thorough check of the van, Maestre was asked to open the rear door and acted “startled,” officials said.

Measuring the van, the customs inspector found that the wall behind the front seats was 18 inches thick, Villegas said. The inspector then drilled into the wall and found white powder on the drill bit, Villegas said.

Maestre is being held in the Metropolitan Correctional Center on suspicion of importing a controlled substance, a charge that carries a maximum penalty of life imprisonment and a $4-million fine.

Kelly Rae, a Drug Enforcement Administration special agent, said Maestre had been released from prison June 10 after serving 5 1/2 years for the attempted murder of his ex-wife. She said Maestre told her that he had been unable to find a job since his release.

“Mr. Maestre is most likely a ‘mule,’ someone who is given some money to bring this stuff across,” Rae said. “The guy is basically your sad story . . . . a person who is so low on the pyramid of things that he is strictly being used by the higher levels of the organization.”

Rae also said that Maestre, who was born in Tijuana but is a U.S. citizen, comes from a “decent” family; his brother, she said, is a high school principal.

The cocaine found in the van was individually wrapped in kilo bricks, then packed into seven cardboard cartons. Forty of the kilo packages had no markings; 50 bore the word “moncho” and 58 others had the number “6” with a circle around it, Rae said.

The 402-pound cache was the largest confiscated at the border since March 2, when 475 pounds of cocaine were found hidden in a car.

Tuesday’s seizure brought the amount of cocaine intercepted at the border to 1,302 pounds since Oct. 1, 1987. That figure contrasts with 80.6 pounds in the previous year.

Villegas said the sudden increase in the amount of cocaine coming across the border may be the result of drug crackdowns in other areas of the country.

“I think that there’s increased pressure on the Southeast area, the Caribbean, Miami,” said Villegas. “There is an awful lot of narcotics being seized in those areas, and alternate routes are being sought. This is an alternate route.”