U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers at Juarez-Lincoln Bridge, between Laredo, Texas, and Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, seized $988,550 in unreported currency Friday.
The funds were discovered during a physical examination of a 2010 Nissan Maxima driven by a 20-year-old female U.S. citizen. Hidden inside the vehicle was 53 bundles of currency.
The driver was arrested and the money was seized.
While carrying more than $10,000 is not a crime, it is illegal not to declare currency totaling $10,000 or more when entering or exiting the United States. It also is illegal to conceal currency with the intent of evading reporting requirements.
Anyone who is arrested for failure to declare funds can petition for its return, but the petitioner must prove the currency was legitimately obtained and intended for legal use.
“Our frontline CBP officers continue to maintain resolute vigilance in both the inbound and outbound environments and their attention to detail helped to detect a significant load of unreported currency,” Alberto Flores, port director at the Laredo Port of Entry, said. “Large outbound currency seizures like these deny the ability of transnational criminal organizations to profit from alleged illicit activity, impacting them directly.”
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement-Homeland Security Investigations will investigate the incident.