Broccoli Stash
People often describe broccoli as looking like little trees. People use the same word to refer to marijuana.
Smugglers were apparently hoping to cash in on this similarity when they tried to hide a stash of marijuana inside a shipment of broccoli.
Customs agents in Texas foiled the plan, however, when they discovered the green herb mixed in with the green veggies.
The bust came when the U.S. Customs and Border Protection searched a tractor trailer that was hauling a load of broccoli from Mexico to the U.S.
By using a combination of imagery technology and drug sniffing dogs, authorities found 661 individual packages of marijuana hidden among the veggies.
Coming in right at 766 pounds, the stash of weed had a street value of more than $150,000.
This is definitely not the first time smugglers have tried to sneak cannabis into the U.S. by hiding it in a shipment of vegetables.
In January, smugglers wrapped bundles of marijuana in orange plastic to make them look like carrots. The packages were then mixed in with a shipment of actual carrots that was headed across the border.
Despite seeming like a promising technique, border agents sniffed this one out as well. In that case, authorities seized more than 2,000 pounds of cannabis.
Drug smugglers will apparently go to pretty much any length to get their product into the U.S.
Earlier this year, law enforcement agents discovered that an innocent looking foosball table was in fact stuffed full of marijuana.
Similarly, cops in Fishers, Indiana were surprised to discover 500 pounds of weed hidden in a tractor trailer that was casually parked in a Wal-Mart parking lot.
And of course, maybe the most famous, Hollywood-esque smuggling attempts are those involving elaborate tunnels.
Late last year, authorities in San Diego found the entrance to a tunnel that was stuffed full of marijuana.
It turns out the tunnel was part of a huge network of tunnels crisscrossing beneath the Mexico-U.S. border. The tunnels included complex lighting systems and even rails and carts presumably used to transport the illegal drugs back and forth.
Authorities suspect these tunnels are part of a larger network of smuggling efforts carried out by Mexican drug cartels.
(Photo Credit: FoxNews)
