Customs and Border Protection officers seized 450 pounds of cocaine, valued at an estimated $6 million, from a commercial tractor-trailer crossing at the Lewiston Bridge port of entry last Tuesday, the agency told Fox News Digital.
The truck was headed north when officers conducted a routine inspection and noticed modifications to the vehicle’s floor. That discovery prompted a K-9 team to search the trailer, where agents found 174 vacuum-sealed packages of cocaine hidden inside.
Sharon Swiatek, acting port director for the Area Port of Buffalo, credited the officers and their dogs for the find.
“This significant seizure highlights the exceptional vigilance, advanced training and relentless dedication of our CBP officers and canine teams at the Lewiston Bridge border crossing,” Swiatek said.
The case has been handed off to Homeland Security Investigations’ Buffalo office for further review, CBP said.
Swiatek noted that CBP’s work at the northern border isn’t limited to stopping shipments coming into the United States. Officers also watch for dangerous cargo heading out of the country.
“While a large focus of our border security mission is on inbound threats, our officers remain equally sharp during outbound operations to dismantle transborder criminal networks, disrupt the flow of dangerous narcotics and protect communities on both sides of the border,” Swiatek said.
In April, CBP announced it had stopped a vehicle from crossing into Mexico that was carrying a rocket-propelled grenade launcher, 16 AK-pattern rifles, 24 rifle magazines, 16 rifle stocks, 20 pistol grips and other weapon parts. Acting Deputy Commissioner Ron Vitiello said at the time that the seizure kept “these dangerous weapons from wreaking havoc on the good people of Mexico.”
The Lewiston bust comes amid a broader shift in border enforcement patterns. Illegal crossings at the U.S. southern border have fallen sharply since President Donald Trump returned to office at the start of 2025, dropping from more than 240,000 in October 2024 to about 12,200 this past August, a decline of more than 94%. Encounters at the northern border have also dropped, from over 17,000 to under 6,100, a 64% decrease over the same period.
Despite those declines, CBP officers continue to intercept large-scale drug shipments moving through commercial trucking routes at ports like Lewiston, underscoring the agency’s ongoing effort to stop narcotics trafficking even as overall crossing numbers fall.
