Three Arizona busts yield more than 200 pounds of methamphetamine

PHOENIX – Arizona Border Strike Force troopers seized more than 200 pounds of methamphetamine in three recent drug arrests, operations touted during a news conference Monday in Tucson.

“It doesn’t look like much, but if you realize (that) encapsulated in each of those plastic-wrapped containers are the addictions and deaths of Americans, it’s narcotics terrorism at its highest level,” said Arizona Department of Public Safety Director Col. Frank Milstead, referring to packages of drugs piled on a table.

In the first incident, on Sept. 8 in Pinal County, 19-year-old Roberto Cervantes of Rio Rico, Arizona, was arrested and 52 pounds of methamphetamine was seized.

A Sept. 12 bust on Interstate 10 in Pima County yielded more than 122 pounds of the drug and the arrest of 24-year-old Guillermo J. Parada of Phoenix.

The next day, 50 pounds of methamphetamine and around 4,000 fentanyl pills were seized on Interstate 8 in Yuma County, and 18-year-old Martin G. Bogarin of Yuma was arrested.

Milstead said funding from the federal Operation Stonegarden initiative has been helping the state combat the drug epidemic, which caused more deaths than traffic accidents in the United States last year.

“Those federal dollars, the ability to put resources on Arizona’s highways, on the highways of America, which are really the circulatory system for moving dope across America, will save lives,” he said.

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