A Guelph man is facing charges after U.S. border officers say he attempted to cross the U.S.-Canada border with over 112 kilograms of cocaine.
Court Documents show that U.S. Customs and Border Protection say the arrest took place at the Blue Water Bridge point of entry in Port Huron, Mich., at the shared border with Sarnia, Ont., sometime Sunday night during a routine check of a commercial transport truck which was headed into Ontario.
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In those court documents, U.S. border agents say the driver told officers he was transporting blackberries from Texas and did not witness the shipment being loaded onto the truck, prompting the officers to inspect the truck in an x-ray tunnel.
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Prior to the x-ray, U.S border officers say they had to repeatedly warn the driver to stay at least 50 feet away from the truck during the inspection according to court documents and also say that he attempted to return to the vehicle several times prior to the inspection and described his behaviour as “unusual.”
The inspection found the truck to be housing narcotics inside in four boxes of vacuum sealed packages of cocaine, amounting to about 112 kilograms in total, officers say.
Two of those boxes were said to be within arm’s reach of the driver’s seat while the other two were in the truck’s sleeping cabin hidden under a sleeping bag and duffel bag containing clothing, according to agents.
Police say the contents of the packages tested positive as cocaine.
U.S Border Officers also indicate in the court documents that the driver crossed the border in Sarnia at Port Hope, Mich. on Oct. 15, later crossing the U.S. Border with Mexico in Falfurrias, Texas, on Oct. 19.
Those same court documents also show the driver had crossed into the United States in the same vehicle 25 times over the course of the last six months.
Dario Grujic, of Guelph, was arrested and subsequently charged with transporting narcotics and attempted distribution of a controlled substance.
The case will be prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Michigan.
Grujic has been turned over to Homeland Security Investigations, and appeared in court on Monday.
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