CBP discovers $5.5 million of meth in Otay Mesa medical supply shipment

Customs and Border Protection officers discovered more than 2,400 pounds of methamphetamine — worth an estimated $5.5 million — concealed within a shipment of medical supplies at the Otay Mesa port of entry, authorities said.

The illicit shipment was discovered about 9:45 a.m. Saturday inside a big rig at the port’s commercial import inspection facility, officials said in a statement.

“The cargo was manifested as various medical supplies,” the statement said, but when an officer referred the semi-trailer to a secondary inspection area, an imaging system “found anomalies within the cargo shipment.”

A drug-sniffing dog zeroed in on one of the pallets, and officers unloaded the shipment to find 120 packages of methamphetamine mixed in with the medical supplies. The packages weighed a total of 2,425 pounds.

Officers arrested the 29-year-old Mexican man driving the truck and turned him over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the statement said. He’s expected to face federal charges.