Smugglers Beef Up Cars to Cross Border Illegally

Smugglers have skirted security at the U.S.-Mexico border more than a dozen times in recent months by sending cars with reinforced tires and bumpers hurtling north in the southbound lanes of the freeway that connects the two countries, officials said Monday.

The smugglers, carrying drugs or illegal immigrants, fill the tires with silicone to withstand road spikes meant to thwart wrong-way drivers and add extra steel to the bumpers to knock oncoming cars out of the way, said William Veal, chief of the Border Patrol’s San Diego sector.

The Border Patrol is working with local police and Mexican authorities to halt the incidents, which authorities believe are the work of a single smuggling organization, Veal said.