CALEXICO, Calif. — Federal officers seized more than half a ton of cocaine worth an estimated $20 million from the floorboards of a commercial truck and flatbed trailer at the Calexico Port of Entry, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of California announced.
The driver and sole occupant of the truck, Jose Manuel Lopez Lopez, 44, of Mexicali, Mexico, was arrested and charged with importation of cocaine under 21 U.S.C. §§ 952 and 960, which carries a mandatory minimum of 10 years and a maximum penalty of life in prison. Lopez entered a not-guilty plea at his arraignment in federal court. A detention hearing is scheduled for Aug. 3 at 10 a.m. before U.S. Magistrate Judge Lupe Rodriguez Jr.
The amount seized is “a tremendous amount of drugs, even by the standards of this district,” according to the government’s motion to detain the defendant. It marks the second-largest cocaine seizure in 2026 in the Southern District of California. The largest came in May, when more than a ton of cocaine estimated at $45 million was discovered in connection with a subterranean cross-border tunnel.
Customs and Border Protection officers, working with agents from Homeland Security Investigations and the Drug Enforcement Administration, X-rayed the trailer — which was loaded with 269 bundles of rebar — and observed anomalies in the floorboards. A drug-sniffing dog alerted to the trailer. After unloading the rebar, officers unscrewed the wooden floor planks and found them stuffed with drugs. In total, 366 packages of cocaine weighing 1,002.13 pounds (454.56 kilograms) were removed.
The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Paul Benjamin and Lawrence Casper as part of Operation Take Back America, a nationwide Department of Justice initiative targeting drug trafficking and transnational criminal organizations. The investigation was conducted through the California Homeland Security Task Force, established by President Trump in Executive Order 14159, “Protecting the American People Against Invasion.”
Lopez’s detention hearing before Judge Rodriguez is set for Aug. 3 in federal court in the Southern District of California.