How Do Drugs Get Into The US? Catapult To Launch Marijuana Over Border From Mexico Found By Border Patrol

Drug smugglers have recently resorted to increasingly creative methods for getting their contraband over the border, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials. Case in point: Agents discovered Friday what appeared to be a catapult designed to launch bundles of marijuana from Mexico into Arizona.

Customs and Border Protection agents patrolling the Douglas Port of Entry, a border inspection station in the small Arizona town of Douglas, noticed several people on the Mexican side of the border fence running in the opposite direction Friday, according to a news release. Upon further inspection, the team discovered two bundles of marijuana weighing a combined total of 47 pounds and a “catapult system attached to the south side of the border fence.”

Officials dismantled the catapult and notified Mexican law enforcement authorities, who seized the structure. Customs and Border Protection took possession of the two packages of marijuana.

Unique ways to get drugs over the border have become more common in recent years as Customs and Border Protection has expanded its team and cracked down on smuggling. For example, in 2012, border patrol agents discovered a cannon used to launch 85 pounds of marijuana hidden in soup cans over the border into San Luis, Arizona. The drugs made it 500 feet over the fence thanks to a carbon dioxide tank used to power the cannon.

Meanwhile, President Donald Trump has vowed to crack down on illegal immigration and drug smuggling through the construction of a 2,000-mile border wall. Before taking office, he said during the second presidential debate in October that the U.S. was “letting drugs pour through our southern border at a record clip.”

Agents along California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas, seized more than 5,900 pounds of cocaine and more than 2.2 million pounds of marijuana in 2012, according to Customs and Border Protection. That amount, however, has been steadily declining. In 2015, about 1.5 million pounds of drugs were seized along the southwest border.