Suspected drug runners filmed scaling Mexican border fence

ByABC7.com staff KABC logo
Saturday, April 2, 2016
Suspected drug runners filmed scaling Mexican border fence
A Mexican news crew filmed two suspected drug smugglers scaling the border wall and crossing into Arizona unchallenged.

NOGALES, Ariz. (KABC) -- Dramatic video of two suspected drug smugglers scaling a wall to sneak into the United States at a closely guarded border has just surfaced.

The video captured by a news crew from TV Azteca shows two young men climbing the 30-foot wall with large packs on their backs into Nogales, Ariz., one of the most guarded borders in the United States.

The two men get over the wall and into Arizona without intervention from U.S. Border Patrol agents, even though two of the agency's trucks were parked only yards away.

The two men spotted the news crew and tried to get them to stop filming, but the cameras kept rolling. Within about three minutes, the men crossed back over to the fence, and quickly scaled back up it and disappeared over the other side.

Border Patrol spokesman Mark Landess told The Associated Press that it's not uncommon for smugglers to scale the steel fence, especially around Nogales, which is a busy drug smuggling corridor.

Landess said it's impossible to know why the agents didn't respond or whether they even saw the men.

"They might be waiting for something else to happen. There's no way to make an educated comment on that," Landess said.