In the News: ‘$1M in pot found hidden in horse trailer’

That’s a headline from the Houston Chronicle about the seizure of a half-ton of marijuana by U.S. Border Patrol agents in west Texas.

Photos: U.S. Border Patrol

The law enforcement officials discovered the drugs, which were packed inside the trailer walls, at a checkpoint last Thursday on Texas 67, south of Marfa.

The 1,100 pounds of marijuana has a street value of $959,040. It was turned over to the Drug Enforcement Administration for further investigation.

That’s a lot of weed.

Read the full story here.

Horse trailers are popular modes of drugs of transport, apparently.

In February of this year, a drug trafficking ring that used horse trailers with hidden compartments to transport marijuana throughout the Southwest was apprehended, with more than $1.7 million in cash and assets seized and 17 individuals arrested.

According to a law official quoted in the story,”The organization made numerous trips back and forth, and they actually transported real horses in the trailer to disguise the purpose of the trips…. They’d have the horse feed, the whole nine yards — it looked like cowboys moving horses from Arizona to Texas.”

Read that story here.

The month before, nearly 600 pounds of marijuana was found stashed in a horse trailer headed to Houston, stuffed in a secret compartment that had been built into the trailer’s tack/dressing room. There were two horses aboard. Read the story here.

And in December, 30 pounds of pot were discovered in a horse trailer traveling through California–there was a horse in that one, too. More here.

Horse Nation tip of the week: Don’t smuggle drugs in your horse trailer.

Also, if you are not familiar with this book, you should be.

Yeah, it’s for real. You can listen to a dramatic reading of it here.

Go Riding.