Raid in small NM town finds a pile of pot

COLUMBUS – A shoddy house on the corner of a dirt-road neighborhood in Columbus allegedly served as a secret hideout for undocumented migrants and a stash house for marijuana smuggling. Acting on a tip about suspicious activity, U.S. Border Patrol in mid-January arrested five men holed up in the home, a concrete block and wood-paneled house on the corner of two gravel streets off Highway 11. The men stated they were Mexican citizens in the country illegally, according to a Border Patrol statement issued this week. A storage shed out back reeked: Inside, under a blanket, they found nearly 296 pounds of marijuana wrapped in brown bundles. The drugs are worth an estimated $236,640 on the street in the U.S., according to Border Patrol. Also in January, Border Patrol on horseback discovered two burlap backpacks hidden under a mesquite bush near the Cedar Mountains south of Deming. They were packed with 94 pounds of marijuana worth more than $75,000 in the U.S. market. Footprints in the area led back to Mexico; the drugs were abandoned and no one was apprehended, according to Border Patrol...more