20,000 Pounds of Pot Seized at Border

U.S. Customs Service officers seized nearly 20,000 pounds of marijuana from a tractor-trailer truck carrying computer circuits across the U.S.-Mexican border, officials said.

Investigators said they believed that the about $9-million shipment was the largest amount of marijuana seized on the nation’s Southwest bor- der.

“Any time we can prevent 10 tons of narcotics from entering the streets of America, it’s a great day for the U.S. Customs Service,” said Michael Turner, special agent in charge of the U.S. Customs Office of Investigations in San Diego.

Investigators found 4,000 plastic-wrapped packages of marijuana inside the truck with California license plates at the Otay Mesa Port of Entry, on the eastern edge of San Diego.

The truck, on its way north from Mexico, was under inspection about 4 p.m. Friday when a drug-sniffing dog alerted officials to its cargo.

The truck’s driver, Carlos Ibarra, 39, of Tijuana, was arrested by customs agents and transported to the Metropolitan Correctional Center in San Diego until his arraignment in federal court.

Before Friday’s seizure, the largest amount of marijuana intercepted at the border was about 15,000 pounds in April 2001.

Earlier this month, officers at the El Paso border seized 12,600 pounds.

“Although our primary focus is on antiterrorism, we have not diminished our commitment to ensuring that dangerous narcotics are denied entry into the United States,” said Nat Aycox, U.S. Customs director of field operations in San Diego,

With more than 1.4 million truck crossings a year, the Otay Mesa Port of Entry is the largest commercial crossing along the California-Mexico border, according to the Otay Mesa Chamber of Commerce.

It handles the second highest volume of trucks among all U.S.-Mexico land border crossings.