THE ELEPHANT IN THE TRUCK –
July 9, 2022 – Detectives from the Sheriff’s Department’s border crime suppression team followed the truck. First, the person who drove it across the border stopped in Otay Mesa and handed over the keys to another man, Scott wrote. The second driver then headed west on state Route 905 and north on Interstate 5 toward National City.
Sheriff’s detectives also made note of a white Hyundai hatchback with three occupants and Baja California license plates staying close to the truck, Scott wrote. With detectives following the two vehicles, and a sheriff’s helicopter tracking their movements from above, the truck and car eventually both ended up in a National City business district.
According to investigators, two men from the Hyundai then got inside a Dodge work van, and the group began conducting “counter-surveillance,” first by driving circles around city blocks in the area, then walking around and peering into other nearby vehicles. Apparently satisfied with what they saw, they eventually pulled the first van and a second U-Haul van directly behind the box truck, parking on Hoover Avenue just south of West 30th Street.
While one man acted as a lookout, the other three began unloading the truck’s cargo into the two vans, Scott wrote, adding that detectives took immediate action “fearing some of the narcotics may be lost.” Two marked sheriff’s vehicles and several unmarked law enforcement vehicles sped toward the group.
Two of the men, twin brothers, took off running, but detectives quickly detained them and the other two men, Scott wrote. A drug-sniffing dog from the Sheriff’s Department then zeroed in on the packages the men had been moving between the vehicles.
