EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – A federal grand jury on Wednesday indicted three men found inside a Jeep Renegade that crossed the Mexican border at San Luis, Arizona, carrying 62 pounds of methamphetamine to Phoenix.
Border Patrol agents on watch along Interstate 8 became suspicious of the vehicle after learning it entered the United States through the San Luis Port of Entry two hours earlier from Sonora, Mexico, with only the driver. It now had three occupants.
The agents initially suspected a case of migrant smuggling, so they drove up to the Jeep only to see the driver begin to proceed erratically, court records show. The vehicle slowed down, and the driver encouraged the Border Patrol vehicle to pass the Jeep; the agents signaled the driver to pull over after that.
Driver Alejandro Vizcarra consented to a search of the vehicle and border agents found two suitcases loaded with clear cellophane packages containing more than 28 kilos of a substance that tested positive for methamphetamine, per a complaint affidavit filed Aug. 27 in U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona.
Vizcarra later allegedly told investigators he met the other two occupants of the Jeep at a mobile home in San Luis and they paid him $800 to drive the vehicle to Phoenix. Passenger Edgardo Salcido told investigators he was supposed to receive $1,000 for the use of his grandfather’s mobile home and to go along on the drive to Phoenix, the complaint alleges.
Co-defendant Alexis Perez Nuñez Vasquez allegedly admitted picking up the Jeep from the parking lot of a community college, driving it to the mobile home in San Luis and recruiting Vizcarra and Salcido to drive to Phoenix. He said unnamed parties instructed him to leave five packages at the mobile home.
Drug Enforcement Administration and Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) agents raided the mobile home in San Luis on Aug. 28 and found 14.5 pounds of blue fentanyl pills in packages on the floor of a bedroom.
Court documents don’t shed light on where the drugs originated. Security experts have told Border Report the Sinaloa cartel controls drug trafficking along most of the Sonora-Arizona border, including San Luis Rio Colorado and other towns south of the border from Yuma.
The grand jury on Wednesday charged Perez, Salcido and Vizcarra with possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine. They face between five and 40 years in prison if convicted.