State police in Tijuana arrested a 49-year-old man after finding nearly 11 kilograms of cocaine in his car during a traffic stop on Calle Segunda Benito Juárez in the Lázaro Cárdenas neighborhood.
Officers pulled over a California-plated 2012 Acura TL after observing the vehicle speeding and nearly causing an accident on the busy commercial street. On the rear passenger seat, they found ten packages of cocaine wrapped in brown tape and stamped with the label “BREITLING 1884.” The packages weighed a combined 10.94 kilograms, or roughly 24 pounds.
Suspect Turned Over to Federal Prosecutors
The driver, identified only by his first name Enrique, was detained and transferred to the Fiscalía General de la República (FGR), Mexico’s federal attorney general’s office. The handoff to federal rather than state prosecutors is standard procedure for cocaine seizures of this size, as Mexican law sets federal jurisdiction thresholds for drug trafficking cases.
Calle Segunda, also known as Calle Benito Juárez, is one of Tijuana’s main east-west corridors through the Zona Centro and surrounding neighborhoods. It runs parallel to the border and carries heavy commercial and pedestrian traffic. The Lázaro Cárdenas neighborhood sits southeast of downtown, close to several major routes connecting to the Otay Mesa and San Ysidro border crossings.
Cocaine Seizures Continue Across the Border Region
The arrest comes during the same week that U.S. federal agents announced the discovery of a sophisticated cross-border tunnel running from a house in Tijuana’s Nueva Tijuana neighborhood to a retail store in San Diego’s Otay Mesa area. That operation led to the seizure of more than 1,000 kilograms of cocaine valued at over $45 million and the arrest of four men.
While the Tijuana street seizure is far smaller in scale, it points to the continued movement of cocaine through the city’s urban corridors. California-plated vehicles are common in Tijuana, where many residents hold dual residency or cross the border regularly. The use of branded packaging on drug shipments, such as the “BREITLING 1884” stamp found on these packages, is a known cartel practice used to track product and identify suppliers.
This story was first reported by Punto Norte on June 2.