SHIFT Garage volunteer Greg Matson cleans a battery port on a donated car on Wednesday, January 12, 2022, in Sioux Falls. Shift Garage 003
San Diego, California – Smugglers along the U.S.-Mexico border are getting more creative, and increasingly desperate, in their attempts to get drugs into the country. The latest method spotted by agents in San Diego: stuffing narcotics into car batteries.
On Monday, the U.S. Border Patrol’s San Diego Sector announced that officers have been intercepting a growing number of drug loads hidden inside batteries. The tactic has emerged as part of what agents describe as an escalating cat-and-mouse game with smugglers.
“As we continue to gain, maintain, and expand operational control of the southern border, smugglers are going to great lengths to push dangerous drugs into this country,” Acting Chief Patrol Agent Jeffrey D. Stalnaker said in a statement. “The Border Patrol is using every possible resource to dismantle the criminal networks that threaten American communities. I am deeply proud of the work our agents do every day.”
The latest case came last week, when Border Patrol agents teamed up with the San Diego County Sheriff’s Office to stop a Jeep Grand Cherokee on Interstate 5 in Carlsbad. After a search, officers uncovered 9.25 pounds of cocaine and 2.1 pounds of methamphetamine concealed inside the vehicle’s battery. The driver was taken into custody, and the drugs were seized and processed at the Vista Sheriff’s Station.
This wasn’t an isolated discovery. In April, agents found 32.8 pounds of fentanyl hidden in the same way. Then in July, two separate busts turned up 4.85 pounds of fentanyl in one case, and 16.2 pounds of fentanyl along with $1,000 in cash in another.
Officials say the creativity of these concealment methods reflects the pressures cartels and their networks are under. Fentanyl, cocaine, and methamphetamine are among the most lucrative and destructive drugs being pushed into U.S. communities, and hiding them inside a car battery — a component not easily dismantled or casually checked — is just one way traffickers try to beat inspections.
Still, seizures in San Diego Sector show the scale of the challenge. Since the beginning of the fiscal year, agents there have confiscated at least 10,696 pounds of methamphetamine, 2,751 pounds of cocaine, 521 pounds of fentanyl, and 56 pounds of heroin. Each bust, officials say, represents not just contraband off the street, but a blow against the networks that profit from addiction and violence.
