Translate


Sunday, April 13, 2008

The "Drug Wars" (15), Los Angeles ca. 1971


Back in my US Customs days, there was a case where a car was stopped by the Customs Office in the border town of Calexico, California, which was found to contain about a hundred pounds of marijuana. The arrested driver cooperated and identified the registered owner of the car in the greater LA area as the recipient of the load. He agreed to go through with the delivery to LA, so our Calexico agents escorted him, the car and the load north where we met up with them.

According to the driver, he was supposed to call the suspect when he got to the LA area to arrange the transfer. The only problem was that due to his arrest, he was running a couple of hours late, which was bound to arouse suspicion on the part of the main suspect. At this, one of our agents instructed the driver to explain that he had been involved in an accident along the way north.

"But," the driver protested, "there hasn't been any accident."

"No problem," answered my fellow agent.

He then proceeded to the trunk of his government vehicle, took out a sledge hammer, and bashed in the left rear side of the load car.

The rest of the delivery-and arrest of the recipient proceeded smoothly.

Those were the good old days. All you current-day agents, don't try this today.

1 comment:

Lance Christian Johnson said...

Heh. Good story. All he needed was a witty one-liner.