Nearly 4 Tons of Weed Worth $2.3 Million Found Inside Jalapeños Shipment

A would-be shipment of jalapeños and savory weed, underwhelmingly described by authorities as a “significant marijuana load,” was seized last week at the Otay Mesa border in California.

That’s one of the takeaways from what U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency officials decided to speak on via press release earlier this month, with the interception of nearly four tons of weed with a reported market value of $2.3 million having occurred on Aug. 15. A 37-year-old man is said to have come through the port of entry in a truck, at which point the vehicle and its shipment (en route from Mexico to the U.S.) was referred to secondary inspection.

From there, a canine unit took interest in the peppers packaging, followed by a deeper search by CBP officials who ultimately discovered the vehicle’s pepper-unrelated items inside an estimated 314 different packages. As expected, the truck and the marijuana have now been seized.

“I am proud of the officers for seizing this significant marijuana load,” Otay Mesa Port Director, Rosa Hernandez, said in a press release during which marijuana was also bizarrely demonized as a drug. “Not only did they prevent the drugs from reaching our community, they also prevented millions of dollars of potential profit from making it into the hands of  a transnational criminal organization.”

Marijuana, meanwhile, is currently legal in some form or another in 33 different states.