Salton City, California - El Centro Sector Border Patrol agents from the Indio Station, assigned to the Highway 86 immigration checkpoint, arrested a woman suspected of smuggling drugs hidden inside her vehicle’s battery Monday afternoon.

The incident occurred Monday afternoon after a 2002 green Jeep Liberty being driven by a 23-year-old woman approached the checkpoint on Highway 86. Agents referred the vehicle to secondary for further examination based on a Border Patrol detection canine team alert.

At the secondary inspection area the canine team alerted again to the vehicle. After a thorough inspection, agents discovered two vacuum sealed packages of narcotics inside a modified battery of the vehicle.

The content of a package tested positive for cocaine and weighed a total of .75 pounds with an estimated street value of $9,750. The other package tested positive for heroin and weighed a total of 4.07 pounds with an estimated street value of $56,980.

“Our K-9 agents play a vital role in the safeguarding of our communities by helping prevent dangerous drugs such as these from reaching our city streets,” said Assistant Chief Patrol Agent David S. Kim.

The driver, a United States citizen, was turned over to the Drug Enforcement Administration along with the vehicle and the narcotics.