Things have escalated between the U.S. Border Patrol and New Mexico cannabis licensees. As The Paper. previously reported, federal authorities have seized cash, products and even vehicles from state-licensed marijuana operators. Those who have had money taken by the feds the say they are being intimidated by agents and given no avenue of recourse. And now there are reports that individuals involved in previous seizures are being singled out at the border without cause.
During an August stop at the interior Border Patrol checkpoint on U.S. 70 heading toward White Sands, Border Patrol agents seized a Mesilla Valley Extracts company vehicle along with products worth more than $20,000, according to company representatives. The company employee was arrested and held for hours before being released without prosecution. This is the second time the company has had products seized at a checkpoint.
According to Mesilla Valley Extracts’ Office Manager Delia Evans, the seized vehicle was registered to Zach Mendoza, the owner of the company.
“He went to Mexico at the end of August,” Evans says, “When he came back, they started questioning him at customs about what he did for a living.”
Mendoza says he’s never experienced this sort of incident before.
“I’ve been in the cannabis industry for a few years now,” he says. “That’s the first time I was ever asked that.”
He also says he believes that it’s no coincidence.
“It was just kind of weird,” he says. “I think he actually saw on there that I’d had a car confiscated — a red flag.”
Evans says that after waiting for weeks with no word, Border Patrol finally gave the company a few options for getting the automobile back: They could file a lawsuit against the agency or pay an administrative fee of 10% of the vehicle’s market value plus storage and transportation fees. They were also given the option of taking no action and leaving the vehicle in Border Patrol custody.
Mendoza says he was contacted by Border Patrol after the company’s lawyer submitted paperwork related to the incident. During the call, Mendoza says the agent told him that paying the administrative fee would be an easier option than taking it to court.
“‘Cheaper,’ is how he worded it,” says Mendoza. “We should just pay the fines — go the administrative route, and he’d give the car back.”
The company chose to pay the fines and was charged over $2,000 to get the vehicle back.
But there doesn’t seem to be any way for the company to get back the seized products and cash — around $250, according to Evans. Even more troubling: Mendoza and Evans say that Border Patrol never sent any paperwork documenting how much product or cash was seized.
“We were never even given a seizure list of what they took,” Mendoza says. He also says when he contacted Border Patrol about the incident, the agents at first refused to identify themselves. “They didn’t even want to give me their names or badge numbers.”
Evans says she was given conflicting reports on whether the company would receive documentation.
“I did speak to one of the agents at the El Paso sector, and he said that they’re not required to give us any type of documentation.” She says another agent who worked at the checkpoint said the opposite. “He said that we should have been given documentation as to what was seized and what was taken,” Evans says.
It’s also unclear what caused the August stop in the first place. According to Evans, the employee driving the vehicle was asked what he was transporting and gave agents a copy of the manifest. She says it was only after the agents inspected the manifest that they brought out a drug-sniffing dog.
Matt Kennicott, CEO and co-founder of cannabis industry association The Plug, says operators are working with the New Mexico congressional delegation to seek a policy change.
“Cannabis businesses provide over 5,000 jobs and contribute more than $1 billion to New Mexico’s economy,” he says. “The continued bullying of the legal cannabis industry must end.”