The strange ways smugglers use everyday foods to conceal illegal drugs

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Border patrol agents drug smuggling meth tortillas food

US Customs and Border Patrol

CBP agents in Arizona intercepted meth hidden in packages of tortillas in late October 2016.

Each year, billions of dollars in illegal narcotics circle the globe, feeding the demand of millions of users.

At every step, authorities try to intercept the drugs and apprehend their purveyors. In response, traffickers have developed a variety of inventive ways to obscure their illicit goods.

On the US-Mexico border, a preferred method among traffickers seems to be concealing drugs in shipments of food.

At the end of October, Customs and Border Protection agents found 3 pounds of meth hidden in a package of tortillas.

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That was just a few weeks after CBP agents in San Diego intercepted 3,100 pounds of marijuana concealed in a shipment of cucumbers.

Those incidents came after similar seizures over the summer.

In August, border agents uncovered more than 4,000 pounds of marijuana hidden among limes. In two incidents in early July, border agents found well over 200 pounds of meth hidden in shipments of jalapeños and cucumbers.

Here's a non-exhaustive list of ways traffickers have used food to disguise their wares.