Drug Suspects Face Federal Charges

Customs officials announced Tuesday that the seizure of 960 pounds of marijuana last week in Nevada and the capture of three suspected drug smugglers would be prosecuted by the U.S. attorney’s office in San Diego.

A van load of the marijuana was brought to San Diego’s Montgomery Air Field and was to be transported to the federal Drug Enforcement Administration lab in San Diego, said Mike Fleming, spokesman for the U.S. Customs Service for the Pacific region.

Customs officials said pilots using new air equipment, including the Picked CHET, or Customs High Endurance Tracker equipped with advanced radar, conducted their first successful operation Thursday night in tracking down a suspected drug smuggler who flew in a small, twin-engine plane across the border over Calexico at low altitudes and without lights.

The plane was followed to a desert airstrip near Las Vegas, where it unloaded the marijuana onto two trucks, Customs agents said. Two men were arrested on the ground, and Customs and DEA agents pursued the small plane, which left again and headed for California City, Calif., north of the Mojave Desert.

When the plane landed, law enforcement agents there arrested the pilot. The suspects’ names were not released pending completion of the joint investigation by Customs and DEA officers, Fleming said.