Mobile cannon lobbed drugs over US border
Date February 25, 2013
MEXICALI, Mexico: Police in north-western Mexico say they have seized a ''cannon'' used to launch packets of drugs to the US side of the border.
The pneumatic-powered device was found mounted on the back of a pick-up truck with California licence plates, the Mexicali police chief, Marco Antonio Carrillo, said on Friday.
The device was capable of shooting two-kilogram cans containing the drugs 400 metres into US territory, authorities said.
Municipal police found the abandoned vehicle during an operation in a neighbourhood of Mexicali, the capital of Baja California state. No arrests have been made.
Mr Carrillo said the mobility of the drug-smuggling method had made it a problem for authorities on both sides of the border.
In a separate incident, US and Mexican authorities on Friday dismantled a tunnel under construction in the US border city of Nogales, Arizona.
The passageway is one of 27 found in the city in the past three years. In the joint operation, Mexican authorities arrested a man found digging the tunnel on the Mexican side of the border.
EFE
