$1.4M IN BULK CASH SEIZED NEAR BORDER

                                                                    $1.4m

Narcotics investigators in the frontier city of El Paso, Texas seized $1,413,296 in cash, in the bedroom of a residence in a working-class neighborhood. The money, found in 129 wrapped bundles, was one of the largest bulk cash seizures to date made by the West Texas Stash House Unit, whose primary role is to locate places where narcotics arrived from Mexico are temporarily stored, before being distributed in the United States.

Bulk cash narcotics profits, earned in the United States, and en route to Central America, are typically aggregated and stored just prior to being cross-border smuggled into Mexico.  Some of the recent cash seizures in the El Paso border area:

(1) $304,389 seized in a pickup truck bound for Juarez, Mexico, in November, 2011.

(2) $982,000 was found in a condominium in February, 2011.

(3) $400,000 seized in a southbound automobile, in January, 2011.

(4) $530,000 seized at the Stanton Street Bridge in 2010; a follow-up investigation seized $212,000 in the same neighborhood where the $1.4m was seized this week.