Mexico smugglers have reportedly devised a new tactic for transporting marijuana and other drugs across the U.S-Mexico border: by stashing it in the cars of honest people.
As UPI is reporting, an FBI affidavit alleges that drug traffickers have been posting lookouts to identify vehicles which regularly use the express lane to cross the border. After identifying a vehicle, smugglers covertly obtain the car's vehicle identification number and use it to have spare keys made before secretly stashing a load of drugs in the vehicle's trunk at night.
The next morning, unsuspecting drivers would travel across the border to El Paso, Texas, unaware they were hauling drugs.
One woman who claims to have been a victim of said tactic is Ana Isela Martinez Amaya, 35, a 4th grade teacher from the La Fe Preparatory School who is currently awaiting trial on drug charges in Ciudad Juárez. As the El Paso Times is reporting, her husband said Wednesday that they will use the information from the FBI to try to gain her freedom. Though Amaya -- who was arrested with more than 100 pounds of marijuana in her car on May 26 -- is one of three commuters to claim to have been targeted by the smugglers that day, she is the only one still being prosecuted.
"It has given us motivation," her husband, Isaac Cuanalo, says of the new information. "It corroborates that Ana is innocent and that Ana is a victim that she did not know of the suitcases. We are thanking God."
Ciudad Juárez Mayor Hector Murguia says he is also thankful for the latest discovery. "It is lamentable that we see cases of this type in the justice system that involve innocent people, people who had drugs planted on them through no fault of their own," Murguia is quoted by the El Paso Times as having said in a statement. "We have to guard against these kinds of things in Juárez, and it's a good thing that the authorities, in this case in the United States, discovered what these gangs were doing."