Two women faced a federal judge on Tuesday after being jailed for smuggling 6,500 rounds of ammunition in their groceries and personal belongings.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers arrested Luz Sylvia Cortez and Claudia Yaneth Treviño-Martinez on separate federal ammunition charges on Wednesday, December 30th.
The two women drove up to the Hidalgo-Reynosa International Bridge in a 2003 Chevrolet pickup truck.
The women were subjected to an outbound inspection where customs officers allegedly found thousands of rounds of high-powered ammunition hidden among groceries and other items in the back of Cortez’s truck.
A criminal complaint shows that customs officers found more ammunition in the women’s purses and under their clothes.
Cortez’s 14-year-old daughter was with them at the time. The girl was turned over to relatives.
The 33-year-old Hidalgo mother allegedly told investigators that she got the ammunition from her boyfriend Mario Zavala.
Cortez said the two met in the parking lot of the Wal-Mart off U.S. Expressway 83 and East Jackson Avenue in McAllen.
Zavala allegedly told Cortez that she would get paid $1,000 dollars to take the ammo to a store in Reynosa where he would be waiting.
U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents continue to investigate the case.
Both Cortez and Treviño-Martinez appeared before U.S. Magistrate Court Judge Dorina Ramos in McAllen on New Year’s Eve and on Tuesday morning.
Court records show that Treviño-Martinez is an illegal immigrant from Reynosa, who had previously been arrested for illegal entry into the United States in 2007.
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