Fast food? Border agents find meth hidden in chicken buckets

Updated Feb 23, 2013, 9:27 am ◇Originally posted Feb 22, 2013, 1:43 pm

Dylan Smith
TucsonSentinel.com

CBPMeth was found in a pair of buckets of chicken at the I-19 Border Patrol checkpoint.
CBPMeth was found in a pair of buckets of chicken at the I-19 Border Patrol checkpoint.

Two women were arrested Thursday morning after agents at the I-19 checkpoint found nearly six pounds of meth hidden in buckets of chicken, according to a news release from Customs and Border Protection.

The pair were riding in a commercial shuttle van when Border Patrol agents found six bags of methamphetamine concealed in the fast food buckets, underneath pieces of chicken, said a BP spokesman, Agent Jeremy Copeland.

The drugs, valued at $58,700, were turned over the the Drug Enforcement Administration, and the women are facing prosecution, the release said.

No word on what happened to the chicken, or who can't figure out how to set the date in their camera.

"As far as what happened after they made the seizures, I'm not sure what they did with the actual chicken," Copeland said in an interview.

The smugglers were likely trying to mask the meth from detection by drug-sniffing dogs, Copeland said.

"The canines do work by smell and we've seen in the past a lot of different smugglers have tried different techniques to mask the odor of narcotics by using different things," he said. "In this particular case using fried chicken it was not successful because they were caught and arrested and now they're facing federal prosecution."

The smuggling attempt was discovered by agents working a secondary inspection area, Copeland said, rather than by BP dogs.

TucsonSentinel.com’s Rebekah Zemansky contributed to this report.

Filed under

news, politics & government, border, crime & safety, local, arizona, food, breaking,

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Fast food? Border agents find meth hidden in chicken buckets

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Fast food? Border agents find meth hidden in chicken buckets