AST Digital Magazine July/August 2016 | Page 61

Volume 6 AZ CBP Officers Stop Weapons, Ammo Headed for Mexico July-Aug 2016 Edition Five days earlier (June 29), officers conducting southbound inspections at the Dennis DeConcini crossing referred a 24-year-old Nogales man for a secondary inspection of a Volkswagen sports wagon. When searching the back of the vehicle, they discovered a number of items beneath clothing. The items included two AR-15 tactical rifles, seven magazines and more than 2,000 rounds of ammunition. Officers seized the vehicles and contraband, and referred both subjects to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations. Our officers have to think quickly. They have to exercise their hand-eye coordination and they have to engage that threat,” said Area Port Director Timothy Walker. “Whether that threat is a deadly force situation or not, we don’t know because we have different scenarios that we can run with the simulator. It is a truly a breakthrough in training technology.” US CBP officers arrested two Nogales, Arizona residents recently for attempting to smuggle tactical rifles with magazines and ammunition into Mexico through the Port of Nogales. When officers selected a southbound Dodge sedan, driven by a 22-year-old local woman, for a secondary inspection on July 4 at the Nogales West Mariposa crossing, they found 10,000 rounds of tactical ammunition in the vehicle’s trunk. CBP officers at the Nogales West Mariposa crossing discovered and seized 10,000 rounds of tactical ammunition from a Nogales, Ariz. woman before she could proceed southbound into Mexico. U.S. Customs and Border Protection is the unified border agency within the Department of Homeland Security charged with the management, control and protection of our nation’s borders at and between the official ports of entry. CBP is charged with keeping terrorists and terrorist weapons out of the country while enforcing hundreds of U.S. laws. 61