March 11, 2022 — U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents found 230 pounds of pork bologna that people were trying to illegally smuggle into the United States last month at border crossings in Texas.
Agents made two other bologna seizures in January, the CBP said. In one of those cases, the driver told authorities he sells the bologna in the U.S. for almost double the price he pays in Mexico, according to a news release.
Customs and Border Protection and the U.S. Department of Agriculture work together to prevent pests and diseases from entering the country at ports of entry.
“People will sometimes make light of these seizures but there is nothing funny about these failed smuggling attempts,” Hector Mancha, CBP El Paso director of field operations, said in a news release issued Monday. “The importation of unregulated pork products has the potential to introduce foreign animal diseases which can be detrimental to our nation’s agriculture industry.”
A seizure in El Paso at the Bridge of the Americas border crossing on Feb. 25 yielded 110 pounds of bologna, the news release said. A U.S. citizen in a vehicle “gave a negative agriculture declaration,” but further inspection found rolls of pork bologna hidden in the vehicle.
The driver said a friend paid him to bring in the meat. The man’s wife arrived in a second vehicle, and more bologna was found.
On Feb. 28, 100 pounds of bologna was seized at the Santa Teresa border crossing when an inspection found “anomalies in the vehicle’s cargo area,” the news release said. The driver, a 59-year-old U.S. citizen, had also given a negative agriculture declaration.
The CBP issued civil penalties for failure to declare commercial quantities of bologna. The meat was destroyed by CBP, because of U.S. Department of Agriculture rules.
The news comes after CBP agents seized 243 pounds of pork bologna in two unrelated incidents in January at the Paso Del Norte and Ysleta border crossings in Texas, the CBP said.