Border cops nab dope "pedalers"

PHOENIX (Reuters) - Dope "pedaling" took on a whole new meaning in recent days after U.S. border police nabbed two Mexicans smuggling bundles of marijuana into the United States loaded onto bicycles.

Border Patrol agents in Calexico, California, said on Monday they arrested the two men after they slipped over the All American Canal from Mexico in a raft early on January 4.

"Once on the north bank, the two individuals were observed getting out of the raft and dragging what appeared to be large bundles of contraband onto the shoreline," the Border Patrol said in a news release.

"The two individuals then pulled bicycles out of the raft and loaded the bundles into prefabricated boxes attached to the bike frames," it added.

Agents arrested the two men shortly afterward as they pedaled along a darkened farm road with 110 pounds of pot valued at $88,000 packed into their panniers.

The marijuana, bicycles and both men were turned over to the Imperial County Sheriff's Office, the Border Patrol said.

Each year, Mexican smugglers haul hundreds of tons of marijuana, cocaine, heroin and methamphetamines over the border to market in the United States in a clandestine trade worth billions of dollars.

Much of the contraband is packed into vehicles and driven north through the ports of entry, or walked up over the wilds of the 2,000-mile (3,200-km) border on foot or on horseback.

Smuggling on bicycles is less common.