Federal officers seized more than 17,060 pounds of marijuana from a tractor-trailer rig that was crossing into Nogales on Friday.
The Customs and Border Protection said the drugs were worth about $8.5 million. The Mexican national driving the rig was arrested.
Officers discovered the drugs hidden with six palletized boxes identified as aircraft parts following an alert from a drug-sniffing dog at the Mariposa commercial crossing.
This seizure is a near-record for a crossing in ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥. The largest seizure was more than 20,000 pounds in November 2013, according to the CBP.
The driver of the rig Gerardo Cruz, 23, of Sonora, Mexico, was taken into custody and transferred to Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Homeland Security Investigations, CBP said in a news release.
Nogales Port Director Guadalupe Ramirez praised the efforts that resulted from this seizure: “Near record seizures such as this are the result of a combined effort by our officers, canine, and technology.â€