Border bust nets 262,000 Ecstasy pills in truck

Day after day, U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents search through cars and trucks headed into the country, usually coming up empty-handed.

But late last week, officers made a discovery that is providing a morale boost to agents across the international border: 262,000 tablets of the illicit club drug Ecstasy, secreted away in hidden compartments in a semitrailer’s doors. Authorities estimate the street value at $5.2 million.

“Anytime you have a major find, it’s a major morale booster,” said Border Patrol spokesman Mike Milne. “It’s an affirmation of why you go out there every day to guard the border.”

Officers were doing a routine search of a semitruck headed from Canada into the United States at the Oroville crossing Friday and used an X-ray machine to peer into the walls of the vehicle, Milne said.

They saw something peculiar in the back doors of the trailer, and after officers probed further, they found more than 262,000 pills of Methylenedioxymethamphetamine – commonly known as Ecstasy – stuffed inside plastic bags in the doors.

“It was a very sophisticated method of concealment,” Milne said. “It doesn’t look like a small-time operation.”

The drivers of the truck, a man and woman, said they were unaware of their cargo’s illicit nature, Milne said. Often semitruck drivers will pick up an already loaded trailer and haul it to wherever the customer directs them.

This trailer was headed for California. But the drivers are headed home to Canada as the investigation continues.

U.S. Border patrol agents are working with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in the investigation, Milne said. There was not yet any reason to believe the drivers had any knowledge of the massive drug-dealing transport.

Large-scale ecstasy smuggling is more common across the Cascades at the Blaine, Wash., crossing, Milne said. This is the first time agents have found so large an amount in Eastern Washington.

“We’ve dealt with B.C. bud for 10 years,” Milne said of the potent marijuana grown in British Columbia. “But we’ve had a major increase in the last two to three years of the amount of Ecstasy being smuggled down into Washington.”

Ecstasy is considered a recreational drug that causes euphoria and other side effects heightening various physical and emotional senses. The 182 pounds of Ecstasy seized at the border will be destroyed, with some pills saved for evidence purposes.