Man Tries To Smuggle $500k Of Cocaine In Car With Wife, Infant Son

A U.S. citizen identified only as a 34-year-old was caught in his car by border patrol agents with cocaine worth over $500,000. At the time of his arrest, he was accompanied by his wife and baby son.

The man was arrested last Thursday in San Clemente, California, when agents from border patrol spotted a suspicious vehicle driving past them at over 85 MPH, jumping from one lane to another in a frantic fashion, ABC News affiliate KGTV reported.

Later on, agents confronted the man and his wife as they stopped at a nearby shopping mall and briskly tried walking from their vehicle. After asking for consent from the couple, the agents went on to investigate their car and discovered a duffel bag with 20 brick-shaped cocaine packets, an official statement from U.S. Border Patrol said.

Agents also uncovered a shopping bag with a cocaine package near their infant son’s car seat. A total of over 50 lbs of cocaine was seized in total by the patrol agents from the 21 packages they seized. According to authorities, the street valuation of these packages would be over $500,000.

As patrol agents went on to question the male driver, his wife excused herself to the nearby mall with the infant son, claiming that she needed to use the restroom. The pair, however, did not return. Later on, she was located around a quarter of a mile from the mall, trying to escape with her son.

The woman and her child were later released, while the man was then turned over to the Orange County Drug Enforcement Administration Office.

Though the overall valuation of the seized cocaine was quite a significant amount, it was still minor, when compared with the other busts that the authorities have made in the past few years.

In March 2019, 3200 pounds of cocaine which had an estimated street value of $77 million was seized by authorities in New York. Another big catch came in June 2019, when authorities seized 16.5 tonnes of cocaine worth $1 billion.