A person trying to smuggle people across the Mexican border into Texas was caught in a vehicle painted to look like Border Patrol SUV,
KRGV-TV reports.
It is common for smugglers to mask their vehicles as everything from UPS delivery trucks to Time-Warner Cable service vehicles, but Border Patrol officials in Laredo, Texas, said the fake Border Patrol vehicle was the first in recent memory.
The White Chevy Tahoe with Border Patrol decals looked convincing to the untrained eye, but Border Patrol agents had no trouble spotting the fake.
"There’s no fender, there’s no ground effect on any of our vehicles," Border Patrol official Omar Zamora told the station. "They’re actually pretty bare and about as high as we get the vehicle, because we do go off road."
Twelve people were found hiding inside.
"The smugglers are trying to clone it to avoid law enforcement detection," Zamora said.
"I can tell right here by just looking at, you know, the equipment, that this is a Border Patrol vehicle, an RGV sector vehicle," he added, explaining that all the numbers and codes on real vehicles have a meaning.
"Any Border Patrol agent that’s been in for quite some time knows whether that number is correct or not," Zamora said.
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