Cocaine Valued at Roughly $20 Million Seized From Truck at US Border

This is the second biggest cocaine seizure this year in the Southern District of California.

Federal law enforcement officers seized more than half a ton of cocaine worth more than $20 million hidden in a truck at the Calexico Port of Entry in California. Courtesy of the DOJ

Federal authorities have seized more than 1,000 pounds of cocaine from a commercial truck at a southern border entry point, estimated to be worth more than $20 million, according to the Department of Justice (DOJ).

The drugs were hidden in the floorboards of the truck and the attached flatbed trailer, the DOJ said in a July 29 statement. The cocaine was seized at the Calexico Port of Entry, the border crossing linking California with Mexico.

This is the “second-largest cocaine seizure” made this year in the Southern District of California, the department said. The biggest single seizure for the year was recorded in May when more than 2,000 pounds of cocaine worth an estimated $45 million was confiscated.

When the truck arrived at the port of entry, officers from Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and other agencies X-rayed the trailer and identified anomalies with the floorboards. After the rebar aboard the trailer was unloaded, officers lifted the wooden floor to discover the hidden drugs.

In total, 366 packages of cocaine weighing 1,002.13 pounds were seized.

The driver of the truck, Jose Manuel Lopez Lopez, 44, Mexico, was arrested by authorities and charged with illegally importing cocaine into the United States.

Lopez has pleaded not guilty. If convicted, he faces a maximum penalty of life imprisonment, with a minimum of 10 years in jail.

The amount of confiscated cocaine is a “tremendous amount of drugs, even by the standards of this district,” the government said in a motion to detain the defendant, according to the DOJ.

The Epoch Times was unable to reach Lopez’s legal representative for comment.

The case was investigated by the California Homeland Security Task Force (HSTF) as part of Operation Take Back America.

The task force was set up following a January 2025 executive order signed by President Donald Trump, tasking it with ending the presence of criminal cartels and foreign gangs in the United States.

Operation Take Back America was established in March 2025 through a memorandum issued by then-Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche. One of the operations’ objectives is to establish HSTFs.

The CBP has seen a surge in drug seizures, including cocaine, according to a July 16 statement from the agency.

In June, the total amount of cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin, fentanyl, and marijuana seized nationwide was 49 percent higher than in June 2024 under the previous administration. Cocaine seizures alone rose by 71 percent in June from the previous month.

“CBP is preventing dangerous criminal aliens and illicit narcotics from entering our communities, enhancing the safety of every American for generations to come,” CBP Commissioner Rodney S. Scott said in the statement.

The robust seizure numbers come amid concerns about the drug’s use in the country. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned in a report in August 2025 that overdose deaths involving stimulants, mainly cocaine and psychostimulants with abuse potential, “increased substantially” since 2011.

In 2011, a total of 4,681 cocaine-related overdose deaths were reported, which surged to 29,449 deaths by 2023, according to the report.

Among 309,274 overdose deaths between January 2021 and June 2024 in 49 states and Washington, D.C., 30 percent were found to involve cocaine.