Federal authorities recently seized about 1,336 pounds of methamphetamine disguised as onions in Southern California.
The U.S. Customs and Border Protection Friday said the confiscated drugs are worth about $2.9 million.
On Feb. 20, border patrol officers inspected a tractor-trailer carrying a shipment said to be onions. An officer referred the 46-year-old driver and the items for a "more intense examination," where a canine team screened the tractor-trailer. A dog alerted to the shipment, which prompted officers to search it further.
That's when authorities discovered almost 1,200 packages of methamphetamine shaped in "small globes with a white covering" that were mixed with actual sacks of onions, CBP said.
The driver, who is a Mexican citizen, was arrested for the alleged drug smuggling attempt and turned over to federal agencies for additional disposition.
"This was not only a clever attempt to try and smuggle in narcotics, one I haven't seen before, but also time-consuming to wrap narcotics into these small packages, designed to look like onions," Sidney Aki, director of field operations in San Diego, said in a statement. "While we have certainly seen narcotics in produce before, it's unusual for us to see this level of detail in the concealment."
