It’s like clockwork: Every three months or so (it seems like so much more often) we get word from the Texas Dept. of Public Safety that some trooper (or troopers) somewhere has busted some completely incompetent criminal hauling some big-ass load of dope up over the Mex border.
Sure, there’s good reason that it happens so often in Texas — according to the White House Office of the National Drug Control Policy (whose statistics are, generally, for shit, but in this case seem rather pertinent) the Tex-Mex border is actually the nation’s largest marijuana sieve. But there is no good reason for such incompetence in the haulers. Really. We love the pictures DPS regularly provides for these busts, but mostly because we’re laughing at these people (OK, I guess we’re never laughing with ’em, right? Cuz I doubt they’re laughing on the way to the pokey). I mean, seriously, when are these pot pushers gonna learn that stacking the haul up in the SUV so that it obscures the rear view is NOT a good idea? Or that simply stashing your dope in the with legit haul — in this most recent case, that would be packing it in there on top of the crates of fruit — is not so smart?
Sheesh, criminals these days….
In this latest case, DPS officers busted 12 people in connection with a four-day investigation of drug hauling that began, as they often do, with a trooper noticing something a tad strange about an 18-wheeler, this time as it as rolling up through Pharr. (Seriously: 12 people and they couldn’t come up with a better plan?) In all DPS seized just over 3,000 pounds of pot that was stashed in 108 bundles. In all, the fuzz confiscated $1.3 million in drugs and cars from the conspirators.
This article appears in September 12 • 2008.