Agents of U.S. Customs and Border Protection recently seized nearly 3,600 pounds of marijuana in a truck driven by a Mexican citizen trying to cross the border into California, the federal agency said in a release.

The drugs were discovered by customs officers at the Otay Mesa border station at about 4:30 p.m.Wednesday, March 17, the agency said. Wrapped in 822 packages and valued at $1.6 million, the drugs were contained in a secret compartment inside the 53-foot trailer, which had California plates.

The driver, Jose Gomez-Ruiz, 39, of Tijuana, was arrested by special agents of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Officials said he would face charges in federal district court.

Although the amount of drugs recovered might seem large to some, a customs spokesman said it was not unusual – or uncommon.

“This is not new to us; this was a small seizure as far as we're concerned,” Vincent Bond, a press officer for Customs and Border Protection, told Land Line. “We had a 20,000 pounds last year at Otay Mesa and a 15,000 pound seizure two weeks later at Tecate port of entry.”

Customs officers at Otay Mesa have seized over 26,400 pounds of marijuana since Oct. 1. Almost 100,000 pounds of marijuana were seized at that one cargo facility between Oct. 1, 2002 and Oct. 1, 2003.

“It's getting to the point where a 1,000 to 2,000 pound drug seizure at that port is not news here locally anymore, so I don't even do news releases at the ton level,” Bond said. “It's got to be larger than that. Even the 3,600-pound seizure, local news media here just don't see that as news. As one reporter told me, it's simply called doing your job.”

The seizure at Otay Mesa, which is in the San Diego area, came within a day of another large seizure on the far side of the U.S.-Mexico border region. In that case, 1,600 pounds of marijuana was taken from a semi hauling a load of cabbage.

That incident occurred March 19 as a '96 Freightliner pulling a white utility trailer arrived at the Falfurrias, TX, Border Patrol checkpoint. A Border Patrol dog alerted officers to something out of the ordinary, and when they inspected what appeared to be a load of cabbage, they discovered the marijuana.

According to the customs statement, the driver of the truck in the Texas incident, Jose David Gomez, 32, of El Salvador, was arrested and turned over to Drug Enforcement Administration officials in Corpus Christi, TX. DEA officials are still investigating the incident.

--by Mark H. Reddig, associate editor

Mark Reddig can be reached at mark_reddig@landlinemag.com.