EL PASO, TEXAS (AP) -- Federal agents at a border crossing in El Paso seized $300,000 in cash that was headed to Mexico, officials said Wednesday.
Agents working with an Immigration and Customs Enforcement border security task force found the cash hidden in the spare tire of a pickup truck at El Paso's Bridge of the Americas on Tuesday night.
The agents were conducting inspections of southbound vehicles, U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials said.
Investigators said the driver of the truck, 26-year Gualberto Rivera-Cassasco, of Garland, Texas, told agents that he didn't have weapons, ammunition or an excess of $10,000 in cash in the truck. But agents later found 26 tape-wrapped bundles of cash.
While it's not illegal to take large amounts of cash out of the country, federal law does require people to report the transfer of cash over $10,000 to customs officials.
Rivera-Carrasco and his passenger, 22-year-old Julio Rivera-Carrasco of Durango, Mexico, were arrested on charges that they failed to report the cash.
Jail records do not list an attorney for either man.
Federal authorities sporadically check vehicles heading south into Mexico for weapons and cash. The smuggling of high-powered guns and large amounts of cash has long been considered a growing problem contributing to the ongoing drug cartel war raging across Mexico.
Federal authorities have said that up to 95 percent of the guns seized in Mexico are from the U.S. and drug proceeds that could eclipse $28.5 billion annually goes back to Mexico.
Since last year, more than 7,000 people across Mexico have been killed in the struggle for power between the Mexican government and violent drug cartels. More than 2,000 of those killings were in Ciudad Juarez, just across the Rio Grande from El Paso.
(Copyright ©2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
