$9 million in ecstacy tablets found by border crossing
By Contributor
By Suzanne Fournier, The Province U.S. border agents found more than $9 million worth of Ecstasy in “suspicious” backpacks stashed in the woods just south of the border at Grand Forks. Acting on a tip from a hiker, U.S. agents near the border-patrol station in Curlew, Wash., seized 140 kilograms of the popular designer drug contained in an estimated 468,000 pills, police say. U.S. Border Patrol spokesman James Frackelton said the Ecstasy was hidden in several backpacks and in a bag stashed in brush along a trail near the border. A hiker who spotted the backpacks called in the tip, police say. Border patrol agents brought in a canine team, which helped to locate the rest of the stash in a duffel bag nearby. Frackelton speculated that the backpacks had been left for a second, as yet unknown, party to pick up. Frackelton told reporters that the haul of drugs — most commonly used by young people at raves or concerts — may be the largest capture of illicit drugs ever seized on the Canada-U.S. border. About 140 kilos of drugs were seized last October near Colville, Wash. Suspects were observed and arrested, but there are no suspects in Monday’s haul and the U.S. border patrol says it had no reports of people in the area at the time.
