NEWS
Police in Mexico Intercept Bazooka Used to Launch Bales of Weed Over Border Wall
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Introducing the cannabis cannon.
Published on September 22, 2016

Drug smugglers near the U.S.-Mexico border are continually coming up with inventive ways to thwart the prying eyes of border patrol. Their ingenuity is outstanding. Mexican law enforcement recently seized a black van fitted with a homemade bazooka modified to shoot bales of cannabis over the border wall.

Authorities located a black van parked in Agua Prieta, Mexico, which was reported stolen last July. Agua Prieta just so happens to be across the border from Douglas, Arizona, a town synonymous with drug smuggling. The alleged smugglers fashioned a 10-foot (3 meter) cannon to protrude out of the roof of the van. The bazooka consisted of an air compressor, motor, tank and metal tube. The modded air cannon could replace the dated method of hurling softball-sized mini bundles of cannabis and other drugs over the border wall, then paying an American to pick it up and distribute.

The apparatus works by utilizing a high-pressure air compressor to propel the heavy packages of pot. The van was altered in order for the cannon to be fired out of the rear. U.S. Border Patrol spokesman Vicente Paco said the cannabis cannon was capable of launching bales of pot weighing up to 60 pounds in weight. The cannon was ideal for launching drugs over the Arizona/Mexico wall which runs at up to 26 feet (7.9 meters) high. Take that, Trump.
 


Photo via 420Magazine.com

Launching cannabis across the Mexican/American border is nothing new. Just five years ago, a separate group of drug smugglers used a catapult to launch pot over the border. The catapults, called trebuchets, are made out of wood. Also last Spring, authorities uncovered a half-mile tunnel used for smuggling drugs under the U.S.-Mexico border.

Border patrol agents in the area have seen it all before, but nothing like this. Paco says they only see rare devices like this every few years. Obviously a wall can be worked around, whether it's tunnels, wall-climbing “Mexican Spidermen,” or catapults and cannons.  

NEWS
ARIZONA
LEGALIZATION
CRIME
Benjamin M. Adams
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Benjamin Adams is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in a slew of publications including CULTURE, Cannabis Now Magazine, and Vice. Follow Ben on Twitter @BenBot11
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