
Border Patrol Agents stationed in California and Arizona have seized a shipment of 25 Kalashikov-style rifles, a pair of handguns, and a number of magazines that they way was being routed to a Mexican cartel.
The seizure took place on June 12 in Blythe, California.
A press release, issued by the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department, said that the weapons cache was found stashed in the rear of a vehicle driven by 25 year-old Calexico resident Jose Palma Almendarez, who was accompanied by his 17 year-old brother.
Accordig to the press release, the seizure was part of an ongoing investigation, during which Agents of the Border Patrol offices in Arizona and California tracked down Almendarez and his brother whilst they were driving in a Honda CRV. A search of the vehicle revealed the rifles and magazines secreted in the vehicle’s rearward portions. Upon interviewing the two men, officers from the Border Patrol’s investigative task force learned that the weapons had been picked up in Phoenix, Arizona, and were being smuggled into California.
Palma Almendarez was ultimately arrested and booked into custody at the Blythe County Jail on a number of weapons-related charges. His younger brother was released back into the custody of his parents.
The law enforcement officers who took the men into custody were attached to the CVVCGTF (Cocachella Valley Violent Crime Gang Task Force), and were called in by US Border Patrol agents working in the Border Patrol’s Blyth station. The Border patrol agents had requested assistance with processing the seizure and conducting an investigation. Based on interviews with the suspects, authorities currently believe that the shipment was ultimately destined for Mexico.
Blyth sits only a hundred miles north of Mexico’s border state of Sonora. Clandestine graveyards have recently been found in the state, likely dug for casualties of the cartel wars currently going on in the region. Sonora and other border states have erupted in violence since the disintegration of the Sinaloa cartel, as various factions vie for dominance.