EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – Two California residents have been arrested in Texas for allegedly transporting marijuana they planned to sell in New Jersey.
Chanda Chao and Saravuth Ett are scheduled for arraignment on Aug. 21 in an El Paso federal courtroom following their arrest last month on charges of possession with intent to distribute marijuana.
On July 15, a canine officer at the Sierra Blanca, Texas, U.S. Border Patrol checkpoint alerted agents to possible drugs in a white Lexus with California license plates heading east on Interstate 10.
Records show the agents sent the Lexus to a secondary inspection where they searched luggage and found multiple vacuum-sealed bundles of a substance that tested positive for marijuana.
The Border Patrol called two Drug Enforcement Administration special agents to the checkpoint. The DEA interviewed the three occupants of the Lexus and two allegedly admitted to owning the 35 kilos of pot.
According to court records, Chao said she grew the marijuana in her home in California and was transporting it to New Jersey, where she was “planning to sell it and use the proceeds to help her family back in Cambodia.”
Ett also told the DEA he grew the marijuana in California and that he talked to Chao to “combine their marijuana” and sell it in New Jersey, court records show.
Ett allegedly told the DEA he knew individuals in New Jersey who come from his village in Cambodia. He said those acquaintances were willing to buy the marijuana from him and Chao once they showed up to the Garden State, court records allege.
Both California residents said the third passenger in the Lexus, identified only by the initials S.C., was not involved in the alleged conspiracy. Records show S.C. was not charged.
A federal grand jury in El Paso indicted Chao and Ett on the federal charges last Wednesday.
The Border Patrol operates several highway checkpoints north of the U.S.-Mexico border that serve as a secondary line of defense to detect drugs or unauthorized migrants that successfully get across ports of entry or the border wall. All vehicles and individuals are subject to scrutiny at those checkpoints.