Border Agents Arrest Two for Cash Smuggling
Border Patrol agents in the Rio Grande Valley Sector, along with officials from Customs and Border Protection (CBP), have apprehended two U.S. citizens allegedly trying to smuggle over $800,000 in cash from Texas to Mexico. This incident occurred at a border crossing close to Hidalgo, Texas.
Gloria Chavez, the Chief Patrol Agent for the Rio Grande Valley Sector, shared the news on social media, stating that agents and the Office of Customs and Border Protection (OFO) caught the suspects while they were attempting to transport undeclared cash across the border.
According to Chavez, the individuals were traveling from Hidalgo to Mexico when agents flagged their vehicle for inspection. During a more thorough check, law enforcement discovered 56 bundles of cash totaling $815,745.
Earlier this year, in April, Laredo OFO director Donald Kusser reported another attempted cash smuggling case where an individual tried to move undeclared funds from Texas to Nuevo Laredo in Tamaulipas.
Kusser noted that the vehicle approached the port, moving toward Mexico, where officers found nine bundles of cash amounting to $270,730.
In a separate incident, a Texas woman named Ana Paulina Araujo Gonzalez was arrested for carrying over $270,000 in undeclared currency while trying to cross the Hidalgo Entry Bridge. She later appeared in court, where a magistrate set her bond at $30,000, with a required deposit of $2,000.
Reports indicate that cash smuggling is frequently employed by drug cartels as a means to ship profits back to Mexico. The city of Reynosa in Tamaulipas has long been known as an area controlled by the Gulf Cartel, which the U.S. State Department has designated as a foreign terrorist organization.
