U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers said they seized more than 10,000 pounds of cannabis on May 29 in Baltimore that was concealed inside a shipping container heading to Liverpool, England.
CBP officers initially conducted an export inspection of a 40-foot shipping container from Nassau County, New York that was manifested as men’s cotton and nylon shirts. Instead, CBP officers discovered 238 boxes stuffed full of vacuum-sealed bags of marijuana.
CBP narcotics detector dog Letti, a 2-year-old female German shepherd, alerted to the presence of narcotics in the boxes.
The marijuana weighed a combined 4,815 kilograms, or 10,615 pounds. It has an estimated street value of about $24 million in the United States. Officials claimed it could fetch twice that amount in Europe.
Marijuana possession and use is illegal under federal law. Federal law also prohibits the transportation of marijuana across state lines or exporting it from the United States.
“This is a recklessly brazen attempt to smuggle over five tons of marijuana through Baltimore to Europe, and an incredible effort by exceptionally professional Customs and Border Protection officers to intercept it,” said Adam Rottman, CBP’s Area Port Director in Baltimore, in a statement. “Transnational criminal organizations remain teased by high marijuana profits that they expect to earn in Europe. CBP officers remain focused on ensuring that they never realize those illicit profits.”
