New Mexico man in custody after trying to evade Border Patrol checkpoint in West Texas
El Paso, Texas (Border Report) – Three New Mexico men are facing drug charges after allegedly failing to smuggle 420 pounds of marijuana across the Mexican border into oil-rich Odessa, Texas.
Andrew James Lung, Eric Franklin and Patrick Dwayne Adams came on the radar of law enforcement when a Chevrolet Silverado pickup pulling a horse trailer tried to avoid a Border Patrol highway checkpoint between Presidio and Alpine, Texas, last week, federal court records show.
The trailer was carrying license plates registered to Jose Ancondo, who Border Patrol agents describe as a known smuggler. Records show that Angondo was sentenced March 5 in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas to four months in prison and three years of probation on the count of illegal alien transportation for profit.
The driver of the Silverado pulling the horse trailer, as well as two men in a Cadillac Escalade traveling with the pickup, were taken to a Border Patrol checkpoint, where a canine officer alerted agents to marijuana hidden in a hidden compartment of the trailer. .
In separate interviews with agents, the men identified themselves as Hobbs, New Mexico, residents and said they were giving Lung a ride to a job in Presidio, across the border from Ozinaga, Mexico. However, a consent search of the Franklins and Adams’ cellphones indicated a drug transaction and a $3,000 fee “for six hours or work,” federal court records show.
A background check revealed that three suspects had active felony arrest warrants in the state of New Mexico.
Luong, Franklin and Adams are charged with conspiracy and possession with intent to distribute a controlled substance. A federal judge ordered them held without bond on March 22.
