OAN Staff Addie Davis
3:41 PM – Thursday, July 30, 2026

Law enforcement officers seized more than half a ton of cocaine hidden in a commercial truck and trailer at the Calexico Port of Entry in California, the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of California announced.

In a Wednesday release, prosecutors reported that the cocaine—estimated to be worth more than $20 million—was hidden in the floorboards of the truck and flatbed trailer, which was loaded with 269 bundles of rebar. It marks the second-largest cocaine seizure in the region this year.

According to the government’s motion to detain the driver, Jose Manuel Lopez Lopez, the amount of cocaine seized was considered “a tremendous amount of drugs, even by the standards of this district,” per the office’s release.

Lopez was charged with importing cocaine, and if convicted he faces 10 years to life in prison.

On Tuesday, the office said Lopez, 44 years old, pleaded not guilty in federal court, and his detention hearing is scheduled for Monday.

Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers, working with other federal agents from Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), discovered the drugs after X-raying the trailer, which a drug dog had alerted, and finding anomalies in the floorboards, the office said.

“After unloading the rebar, officers unscrewed the planks from the wooden floor of the trailer and discovered they were stuffed with drugs,” the office stated.

 

More than 350 packages of cocaine were removed from the trailer, weighing over 1,000 pounds.

The largest seizure in 2026 was related to a cross-border tunnel discovered in May, where more than a ton of cocaine was seized estimated to be worth $45 million, according to the office.

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