DPS Adds to Border Enforcement in Texas

DPS adds to border enforcement in Texas
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By Jason Buch

HIDALGO COUNTY ? It was an unlucky day for the drug mules scrambling to reach a stash house near Mission.

Their black Ford F-250 pickup, its bed and cab loaded with 1,200 pounds of pot, was spotted by law enforcement on a recent afternoon, and within minutes a Texas Department of Public Safety helicopter swooped overhead.

The driver turned his truck around and headed for the river.

The chopper shadowed the pickup as it sped over unpaved roads weaving through the network of irrigation channels and farmland gently sloping toward the Rio Grande. Below the Anzalduas International Bridge, the truck hit the water.

The driver and his passenger swam across to the Mexican side of the river while Border Patrol agents swarmed the truck and confiscated the load.

?I think he took a wrong turn there because normally there would have been two or three rafts and about three or four people to take (the drugs) across,? said Capt. Stacy Holland, one of two helicopter pilots flying patrols out of Edinburg on the day of the chase.

Such escape attempts have become more frequent, DPS said, since the department bolstered its presence on the border with more troopers, technology, equipment and weapons.

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