El Paso, TX: A federal judge set a trial date for June 3 for two San Diego women who police say recruited kids to carry drugs from Mexico through the pedestrian lane of a border crossing.
The charges against Shannon Pollard and Amy Lennen are conspiracy to possess with intent to sell fentanyl and methamphetamine while armed. After searching a San Diego home and a public storage facility, police found 46.1 pounds of methamphetamine, 4,493 fentanyl pills, four AR-15 rifles, two AK-47 rifles, a.22-caliber gun, a grenade that wasn’t working, and several stolen IDs and driver’s licenses in November.
Federal court papers show that the Drug Enforcement Administration started looking into the women after a tip-off told them that Lennen offered to sell methamphetamine to a known drug dealer for $1,300 a pound.
The informant said that Lennen told the dealer that Natalie, the woman who gave her the drugs, “hires children to body-carry fentanyl” and other drugs through a Mexican border crossing. The DEA also called the Carlsbad (California) Police Department when they found out that the department was already looking into a drug dealer they thought was Pollard.
The police got a court order to put a tracking device on Lennen’s blue Volvo and found two addresses that seemed like possible drug hiding places: a storage facility in Oceanside and a rental house in San Diego.
Agents and local police raided both places on November 3 and November 8. Court papers show that they allegedly found drug caches, guns, ammunition, documents, an ounce of heroin, and 26 Xanax pills.
A document in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California called a complaint affidavit says Pollard rented both homes under the name Nathalie Flores. Authorities nabbed Pollard while searching the rental home because she was breaking the terms of her probation for a previous federal charge, according to records. Lennen was caught in February, and Pollard was caught again for drugs and guns.
It is now time for the trials because both women have pleaded not guilty and waived their indictments.
Last year, federal and local police in San Diego worked together for two months to stop a surge of fentanyl and other hard drugs coming across the border. The DEA says that Operation Blue Lotus found 4,721 pounds of fentanyl and arrested 200 people who were trafficking, selling, or smuggling drugs.
