Man Gets More Than 10 Years In Prison After Trying To Smuggle Meth Inside Cabbage Heads

A man has been sentenced to more than 10 years in prison for attempting to smuggle methamphetamine inside cabbage heads, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said.

The man, Jose Angel Ibarra-Rojas, was found guilty of possessing with intent to distribute close to $3 million worth of meth. Concretely, he has been sentenced to 11 years in prison.

The incident in question took place in June last year. Court documents showed that the vehicle in which Ibarra-Rojas was moving was stopped by law enforcement in Pharr, Texas. After being searched, officers found over 1,100 packages concealed within the cabbages in the cargo area. Overall, there was more than 1.3 kilos of meth inside the vegetables.

Ibarra-Rojas admitted to knowing about the drugs concealed in the vehicle that had recently entered the U.S. He added that he was set to be paid $1,000 to arrange transport of the cargo further north into the country, and that he had done it several times in the past.

Ibarra-Rojas’ case is far from the first in which a smuggler attempts to conceal drugs inside vegetables entering the country. In April, U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers in Pharr intercepted more than 1,000 pounds of methamphetamine hidden in a shipment of chayote squash.

The cargo, valued at $8.9 million, was concealed in 3,770 packages inside a tractor-trailer arriving from Reynosa, Mexico.

Back in November, CBP officers at the same Pharr facility uncovered a $31 million shipment of methamphetamine hidden among serrano peppers. That load, weighing approximately 2,155 pounds, was also found inside a tractor-trailer entering from Mexico and flagged after an X-ray scan raised suspicions.

Similar methods have been reported in California. In August, CBP officers at the Otay Mesa Commercial Facility intercepted 629 pounds of meth concealed in a celery shipment. In that episode, the meth had been packed into 508 separate packages and carried an estimated street value of $755,000.