On Monday, June 2, San Diego authorities announced that officers from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection stopped two attempts to smuggle liquid and crystal methamphetamine into the country from Mexico.

CBP officers confiscated an estimated total of $2.9 million worth of methamphetamine from the two incidents at the SanYsidro Port of Entry, a land border from San Diego to Tijuana. All parties arrested were United States citizens.

Fox 5 San Diego reported that the first attempt happened Friday, May 30. According to Angelica De Cima, a CBPofficer, the alleged smuggler was a 27-year-old man driving a 1993 Ford pickup truck. At approximately 9 a.m., officers sent the driver to the inspection area where a drug detection dog sniffed out the illegal drugs hidden in the truck's gas tank. The tank was holding 166 pounds of liquid methamphetamine.

The second smuggling attempt came on Monday morning at about 4:45 a.m. De Cima said that, this time, it was a 22-year-old driver and a 19-year-old passenger who tried to sneak illegal methamphetamine into the country via a 1972 Ford pickup truck. According to CBP officials, an officer opened the truck's gas tank and thought it looked weird. As a result, officers removed the tank and reportedly found 126 pounds of the drug in both liquid and crystallized forms.

The truck and the methamphetamine were confiscated by customs personel, Fox 5 San Diego reported, and the suspects were arrested and booked at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in downtown San Diego.

In February, officials from the San Diego County Health and Human Services Agency and Dianne Jacobs, County of San Diego Board of Supervisors chairwoman, announced that San Diego county was no longer the "meth capital" of the country, NBC San Diego reported. Still, according to the HHSA, 217 people suffered meth-related deaths in 2012, compared to 140 in 2008 -- a 55 percent increase. Arrests for the sales and/or possession of methamphetamine also increased 56 percent from 2008 (3,993 arrests) to 2012 (6,217 arrests).
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Follow Scharon Harding on Twitter: @ScharHar.

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