A shipment of Mexican-made Ford Fusions delivered to several car dealerships in Ohio contained roughly $1 million of marijuana hidden inside the trunks.
Agents with the Drug Enforcement Administration are working with local authorities to investigate how the drugs were packaged into the vehicles. Workers at a dealership in Youngstown slowly discovered the stash of pot hiding in the vehicles beginning July 7. Over the next few days, workers found more bags of the drug in the wheel well of the Ford Fusions, reports CNN.
Officials suspect there was a breakdown in the supply chain from where the drugs were loaded to where they were supposed to be picked up across the U.S. border.
“Clearly, something went wrong,” Silverio Balzano, the agent in charge of the DEA’s Youngstown office, told CNN. “Generally speaking, they could take it off anywhere else along the way. This is the first time I’ve seen it locally.”
The vehicles were manufactured in Hermosillo, Sonora, Mexico, before being shipped by train to Youngstown. Officials found a total of 15 cars containing the drugs, which turned up in four Ohio counties and Pennsylvania. The vehicles each had a package of marijuana weighing roughly 32 pounds hidden in the wheel well, reports FOX 8.
“We’re aware of the situation and are taking it very seriously,” a Ford Motor Company spokesman said in a statement, according to CNN. “We are working with the FBI and Customs on an extensive investigation. We have confirmed that this is not happening at our plant or at our internal shipping yards.”
Authorities in Minnesota and Arizona made seizures of marijuana smuggled inside vehicles from Mexico earlier this year. Police in Dilworth, Minn., also discovered the illegal shipments inside new Ford Fusions manufactured in Mexico.
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