'Enough to kill over 1 lakh Americans': Two Punjabi truck drivers arrested with cocaine amid license row
PTC News Desk: Two Indian-origin truck drivers have been arrested in California, US after the authorities seized 309 pounds of cocaine, valued at approximately $7 million, hidden inside their semi-truck.
The accused, Gurpreet Singh, 25 and Jasveer Singh, 30 were arrested on January 3.
While the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has put a hold on deportation of both the men with federal officials saying the amount of cocaine seized was enough to kill more than 113,000 Americans.
The arrest comes amid the ongoing legal and political battle over the issuance and revocation of commercial driver’s licences (CDLs) for immigrant truckers, particularly Sikhs, in California.
Police say that Jasveer Singh first claimed he was driving an empty tractor-trailer to a restaurant in Richmond to wait for a load. But officers became suspicious when they noticed several cardboard boxes hidden under a blanket in the truck’s sleeper area. A police dog (K-9) then detected the smell of illegal drugs, and a search of the vehicle uncovered the cocaine.
Officials added that the arrests match previous Department of Homeland Security (DHS) records about the men’s entry into the U.S. and their immigration status. Both suspects have been charged with dealing narcotics, which is treated as a Level 2 felony. Indiana Governor Mike Braun praised the state police for the seizure and repeated that Indiana has a zero-tolerance policy for drug trafficking.
The arrests come at a time of heightened scrutiny of truck driving programmes and licensing practices across the US.
- With inputs from agencies
