Baja California state police seized nearly 40 kilograms of crystal methamphetamine from a taxi on the Tecate to Tijuana libre highway on March 18, arresting a 25-year-old Tijuana man identified as Óscar Ezequiel. Officers from FESC (Baja California’s state preventive police force) pulled over the Toyota Hiace taxi in the El Florido neighborhood after the vehicle was spotted speeding and nearly colliding with other cars.
144 Bags of Meth Concealed in Cardboard Boxes
Inside the cab, officers found 39.58 kilograms of crystal methamphetamine packed into 144 individual plastic bags. The drugs were hidden inside cardboard boxes placed in the passenger area of the taxi. Authorities turned Óscar Ezequiel over to FGR (Mexico’s federal attorney general’s office) to face federal drug trafficking charges.
El Florido sits in Tijuana’s eastern edge, a sprawling residential zone where the Tecate to Tijuana libre highway enters the city. The libre (free, or non-toll) road runs parallel to the cuota (toll) highway and connects the two border cities across roughly 30 miles of hilly terrain. Both routes carry heavy commercial and passenger traffic daily.
Tijuana’s Role in Meth Trafficking to the U.S.
Tijuana remains a central corridor for methamphetamine moving toward the U.S. border. The city’s proximity to San Diego, combined with a network of highways linking it to production zones farther south and inland, makes it a persistent transit point. In one of the largest busts on the U.S. side, San Diego County authorities seized more than 5,000 pounds of meth in National City in 2022. All four suspects in that case were Tijuana residents.
The Tecate to Tijuana corridor is a known route for drug shipments because it bypasses the more heavily patrolled toll road and its checkpoints. Taxis and commercial passenger vehicles are sometimes used to move drugs because they blend into normal traffic patterns and draw less attention than cargo trucks.
The seized meth, at nearly 40 kilograms, has an estimated street value of several hundred thousand dollars depending on purity and final market. Crystal methamphetamine produced in Mexico typically sells for $3,000 to $8,000 per pound at wholesale on the U.S. side of the border.
Óscar Ezequiel now faces federal prosecution under Mexico’s drug trafficking statutes. FESC has not publicly stated whether the arrest is connected to a broader trafficking network or an ongoing investigation, according to Punto Norte.