Suck My Glock
Member
As the article shows and explains, they had 150 cases of .308 and 30 cases of 7.62x39 crammed into this van. Now if you do the math;...60lbs. per case of .308 and 42 lbs. per case of 7.62x39,....[highlight=yellow]that is 10,200 lbs. of ammo.
[/highlight] I don't care what extra helper springs you got under that 1-ton van (assuming it is a 1-ton), that is waaaaaaaayyyyy overloaded. I can only imagine how that thing was riding going down the road. I used to have a 3/4-ton diesel van, and I once loaded a couple pallets of cinder blocks in there for a trip up to Flagstaff to help out on a job, and at only about 3000 lbs., I was waaayy over. That was a sketchy drive. These dudes must have been bottomed out, rolling along like a low-rider, with tires ready to pop. Those cops probably saved their lives by preventing them from driving that thing. Can you imagine if they burned up the brakes going downhill?
https://www.cbsnews.com/colorado/news/men-arrested-while-hauling-180000-rounds-of-ammo-from-utah-into-colorado/
Two residents of Mexico were recently arrested in Colorado while transporting 180,000 rounds of large-caliber ammunition. They were pulled over after driving toward deputies and failing to dim their van's headlights.
Two Fremont County detectives were driving on State Highway 50 in Cañon City on March 26, according to a federal arrest affidavit. The van was coming in the opposite direction and left its headlights on the highest setting as it passed the deputies' vehicle. It is against Colorado state law for a driver to fail to dim his or her vehicle's headlights when there is oncoming traffic within 500 feet of it.
The detectives followed the white GMC passenger van to a gas station and pulled in behind it.
Both men inside the van - Caesar Ramon Martinez Solis, 41, and Humberto Ivan Amador Gavira, 24, both of Mexico - presented United States Visas as their forms of identification.
The cargo compartment of a van that was pulled over in Cañon City in late March contained 180 boxes of large-caliber ammunition. U.S. District Attorney's Office, District of Colorado
Detectives asked to search the van. Martinez Solis, the driver, gave permission. Inside the cargo compartment, the detectives found approximately 150 boxes of .308-caliber ammunition and approximately 30 boxes of 7.62 ammunition. Each box was labeled as containing 1,000 rounds.
Neither man's documentation permitted them to be possession of weapons or ammunition, even for hunting or sporting purposes, according to the federal affidavit.
The Fremont County Sheriff's Office then detained both men and contacted U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) personnel.
The two men were subsequently interviewed by ICE agents and others from the Denver offices of the U.S. Homeland Security and U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. Martinez Solis told them that he and his brother-in-law, Amador Gavira, entered the U.S. the day before. They traveled to Denver, bought the van there, then drove to Salt Lake City and purchased the ammunition from a store, as recounted in the affidavit.
Neither man's visas allowed them to transport ammunition or firearms across state lines.
Martinez Solis told investigators the ammunition was, to the best of his knowledge, destined for Pueblo.
Both men were charged Wednesday by federal prosecutors with Unlawful Possession of Ammunition by Alien Admitted Under a Nonimmigrant Visa.
The case is part of Operation Take Back America. In a press release announcing the charges, federal prosecutors called it "a nationwide initiative that marshals the full resources of the Department of Justice to repel the invasion of illegal immigration, achieve the total elimination of cartels and transnational criminal organizations (TCOs), and protect our communities from the perpetrators of violent crime."
The men are being prosecuted in Denver by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Colorado. They are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
