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By Billal Rahman
Immigration Reporter
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U.S. Border Patrol officers seized a large cache of weapons and ammunition hidden within the trunk of a vehicle of a suspected gun smuggler during a routine inspection on Interstate 10 in Chiriaco Summit.
A search of the vehicle revealed the stash concealed in two duffle bags, one in the trunk and another in the backseat. Agents from the El Centro Sector recovered 28 rifles, one handgun, 30 high-capacity magazines and 2,210 rounds of ammunition.
The suspected smuggler is a man from the U.S. He was arrested and transferred to a local law enforcement task force.
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Indio Station agents conducted a vehicle stop on the evening of July 1, after a Border Patrol K-9 team trained in detection alerted officials to the presence of illegal weapons.
"Smugglers are all cut from the same dirty cloth. They'll do anything for profit, including trafficking children, drugs, or in this case, weapons headed to Mexico," El Centro Sector Chief Patrol Agent Gregory Bovino said in a statement.
"Conversely, our agents are forged differently — winners, ready to take it to criminals anywhere, anytime, anyplace, as this excellent arrest indicates."
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This comes after the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) seized 67 weapons, 69 magazines and 33 rounds of ammunition hidden within a car at Progreso International Bridge in late June.
According to CBP data, there were 3,634 weapons and ammunition "events" from October 2023 to June 2024, with 743 of those on the southwest border. That dropped from the 2022-2023 fiscal year, when there were 4,166 events, and 1,119 of those in the southwest border area.
In the 2021-2022 fiscal year there were 3,808 such events, with 1,144 in the southwest border area. During the 2020-2021 fiscal year, the figure was significantly higher and there were 9,320 seizures. However, of that total, only 1,134 events occurred around the U.S.-Mexico border.
Authorities involved in the weapons bust confirmed that the seizure was part of Operation Apollo, which is seeing federal, state and local enforcement agencies augment CBP resources during investigations into the smuggling of fentanyl into the United States.
The ongoing law enforcement operation began on October 26, 2023, in Southern California and it expanded to Arizona on April 10 this year.
El Centro is a city and the county seat of Imperial County, California. It is the largest city in the Imperial Valley, the east anchor of the Southern California Border Region.
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