Gas drilling a boom for drug traffickers, too, New roads help them bypass border stops

Gas drilling a boom for drug traffickers, too, New roads help them bypass border stops by Dane Schiller, July 16, 2012, Houston Chronicle
Hefty roads running through once-remote ranchlands now enable loaded-down tractor-trailers and pickups to avoid Border Patrol highway checkpoints that have long been the last line of defense for stopping all traffic headed farther into the United States. Traffickers are seeking to use the southwest-most stretches of the massive Eagle Ford shale formation, which stretches from Mexico all the way to East Texas, to their advantage by trying to corrupt truck drivers, contractors and gate personnel. … “They are using those roads to transport drugs, guns, ammo, you name it,” said Albert DeLeon, chief deputy of the Dimmit County sheriff’s office. … “There will be employees who think they can make a quick thousand or 15 or 20 thousand (dollars),” Pena said. “Once money is involved, someone will always go for it.” … Other big South Texas catches came in July last year when Border Patrol agents stopped a bogus oil field truck carrying 1,373 pounds of marijuana, and in June when they found 3,529 pounds of the drug stashed in a truck driven by an energy company worker.