Drug smugglers employ very creative methods to get their loads across the U.S.-Mexico border.
But it’s not every day they use a van outfitted with a 10-foot (3-meter) air cannon to shoot projectiles into the United States.
Mexican federal police said in a statement last week they found such van parked on a street in Agua Prieta, Mexico, along the border with Douglas, Arizona.
It was reported stolen from the city of Hermosillo in the Mexican state of Sonora over the summer.
Images provided by the Mexican police show the black van with hole cut in its roof with a cannon in the back of the van that could fire projectiles. Authorities also said they found an air compressor apparently used to launch packages.
U.S. Border Patrol spokesman Vicente Paco said Tuesday that agents regularly see numerous methods used by smugglers to send contraband over the border fence.
The most common is lobbying softball-sized marijuana packages over the fence and into the U.S., often in residential backyards, Paco said in statement. Smugglers pay someone on the U.S. side to retrieve the packages, which are then distributed around the country.
Paco said high-pressure air cannons can launch heavier marijuana packages weighing 60 pounds. The Border Patrol has also seen the use of trebuchets, a catapult-type launcher that can be crafted from wood.
Smugglers have even used heavy equipment and ladders to hoist trucks loaded with marijuana over the border fence, which in parts of Arizona can go as high as 26 feet (7.9 meters).
Video captured in March by a Mexican news station showed two young men who were carrying large loads of what appeared to be marijuana scaling a border fence from Nogales, Mexico, into Nogales, Arizona.
Locals call these types of smugglers “Mexican spidermen” for their ability to rapidly climb and rappel down the fence.
Paco says the use of cannons and other major devices is rare and that authorities spot them only once every couple of years.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.
Where there’s a will, there’s a way
Illegal drugs today are a mirror image of Prohibition of the 1920s and the 1930s. Legalize all of them which would take away the profit motive. This would stop gangs, drive-by shootings and drug cartels. Taking drugs is stupid, but I don’t think we need a law against stupidity. A fraction of the money spent putting drug users in prison could treat the idiots who use the stuff. I draw the line on selling drugs to kids.
Maybe one way to stop this: where there a will (trump) there’s a way (wall) and if it is high enough it will stop them for a while. There can also be sensors that detect anything that breaks its signal can trigger a video. Sure, birds might do this but normally they do not fly at night besides bats which have a radar of their own so would probably stay away.
Place in a Museum for ALL to see, dedicate Musuem to countering Drug Trade since 70s alone to date.
Along with US Mexican drug tunnels.
Musuemize this unique equip for ALL to see.
I agree with Ollie octopus legalize it all and take the money out of it. Let these idiots do themselves in by using drugs and eventually the problem will solve itself. Stop making tax payers pay for stupidity, the war on drugs is a bad joke.