Arizona border city emerges as latest hotbed of killer fentanyl smuggling from Mexico

The Arizona border city of Nogales is quickly becoming a hotbed of fentanyl smuggling from Mexico, with federal agents finding the deadly drug hidden in the tires, body panels and dashboards of vehicles entering the US from Mexico.

From October through January, Customs and Border Protection officers seized more than six tons of the powerful synthetic opioid at the Nogales port of entry, according to CBP.

A federal law enforcement official said Mexican drug cartels were “pushing more and more through.”

“You have this insatiable appetite for this narcotic and it is very easy to produce,” the source said.

On Tuesday, CBP officers found about 219,000 fentanyl pills hidden in all four tires of a vehicle, Port Director Michael Humphries tweeted.

Photos showed a stack of clear plastic bags holding tiny, light blue pills, as well as the remnants of a sliced-open tire.

One day earlier, a drug-sniffing dog helped ferret out about 343,600 pills hidden in the doors, dashboard, firewall and cargo area of another vehicle, Humpries said.

Nogales has two vehicle crossings that can accommodate a total of 29 lanes of passenger and commercial traffic, with the passenger-only Deconcini crossing — which is open 24 hours a day — responsible for most of the busts, the source said.

On Thursday afternoon, the CBP’s website showed wait times of up to two hours for passenger vehicles at both Deconcini and the larger Mariposa crossing.

The heavy traffic at Nogales is a key reason why smugglers favor using it to smuggle their illicit cargo.

“It’s tough to detect when it’s a needle in a haystack,” the source said.