Font ResizeLAS CRUCES - A Canadian citizen living in Mexico pleaded guilty Thursday in Las Cruces to trying to smuggle almost 500 pounds of marijuana into the country last November.
Jacobo Fast-Klassen, 36, remains in custody and faces a mandatory five years in prison at sentencing before U.S. Magistrate Judge Carmen E. Garza.
Fast-Klassen, who was driving a truck with an empty flatbed trailer into the country at the Santa Teresa Port of Entry the night of Nov. 16, 2010, first caught the attention of Customs and Border Protection officers when it appeared he was "stalling" and trying to "wait until the precise moment before the cargo lane ... closed ... a practice utilized by truck drivers in an attempt to circumvent thorough inspections at the port of entry," according to the criminal complaint. Fast-Klassen's statement that he was driving his empty flat-bed trailer to pick up a load in El Paso all the way from Cuauhtémoc, Chihuahua - more than 1,100 miles away - also struck inspectors as odd, the complaint states.
An X-ray inspection and a drug-sniffing dog detected an anomaly near the fifth wheel area of the trailer, according to a news release Thursday from the U.S. Department of Justice. Upon searching the area, inspectors found 123 bundles containing 493 pounds of marijuana and Fast-Klassen was arrested.
