The morning of September 8 started with a bang — literally — for an Arizona family living in Nogales, a border town along the U.S.-Mexico border, according to the Nogales International . In the wee hours of the morning, Bill and Maya Donnelly were startled awake by a loud crashing sound . Thinking it was a storm, the family went back to sleep. But when they investigated later in the morning, what they found shocked them: a 24-pound bundle of marijuana — likely dropped from a passing plane — had crashed through the roof of the family’s garage and destroyed the family dog’s, Hulk’s, doghouse.
Fortunately, no one was injured, including Hulk, who Maya says was never a fan of his doghouse anyway.
“Thank goodness (Hulk) is a wanderer at night and was not in his house. He was probably at the gate watching the plane go by.”
The plane Maya Donnelly refers to is likely an ultralight plane, which anyone can operate without Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) training or approval. They fly low, quietly (compared to other private aircraft), and drug-smugglers like to use them at night, smuggling drugs from Mexico into the U.S.
Nogales Police Department chief Derek Arnson believes the marijuana bundle that crashed through the Donnelly’s home was probably dropped accidentally from just such an aircraft, based on the way the bundle was packaged. He believes the pilot likely dropped the bundle by mistake, heading for a rendezvous point further north.
“Ultralights, we’ve seen those on occasion. They’ll take a couple, two, three bundles. You can hear those kind of buzzing. They come at nighttime and they don’t land, they just drop and go back to Mexico.”
In and around border towns along the U.S.-Mexico border, drug smugglers are resorting to a variety of methods to get their goods into the U.S. Several well-engineered drug tunnels have been discovered under the border, and drug smugglers build new ones almost as quickly as the DEA destroys them. Failing that, drug smugglers have even employed medieval warfare tools and used catapults to launch bundles of drugs across the border.
For the Donnelly family, the damage from the falling marijuana is going to take a hit on their checkbook. Because of their high insurance deductible, the family will repair the damage — about $500 worth — themselves. Bill says the whole family can expect to be put to work.
“At this point Maya and I are going to do it together, and make it a family outing.”
As of this post, police have not identified any suspects who may be responsible for dropping the marijuana bundle.
[Image courtesy of: Shutterstock / wellphoto ]
