Texas Department of Criminal Justice, profile picture
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Texas Department of Criminal Justice, profile picture

Sometimes, life gives you lemons. Sometimes, it gives you bananas.

And sometimes, it gives you something you'd never expect!

This morning, TDCJ was donated 2 pallets of bananas, 45 boxes, from Ports of America in Freeport. They were being donated due to already being ripe.

Two sergeants of the Scott Unit arrived to pick them up, and discovered something not quite right.

One of the boxes felt different than the others. They snipped the straps, pulled free the box, and opened it up. Inside, under a bundle of bananas, he found another bundle! Inside that? What appeared to be a white powdery substance. They immediately notified port authorities and awaited their instruction.

U.S. Customs arrived on the scene, and the substance tested positive for cocaine. Customs agents then searched each box on the two pallets, and they were all ripe and loaded. Once all 45 boxes had been emptied, what was left was quite the cache. With an instinct that something just wasn't quite right, our guys uncovered 540 packages of cocaine within the shipment, with an estimated street value of $17,820,000!

What a find by the boys in grey!

Now, the Drug Enforcement Administration and U.S. Customs and Border Protection are both continuing their investigation.

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Tanya Myers Lala, profile picture
Tanya Myers Lala
Ooooopppps left the wrong boxes...
Wow..can not believe this one here....crazy..at least its off the streets.
5 yrsReport
Charles Barron, profile picture
Charles Barron
Sooo many jobs were saved in this process, I guarantee you that! Great to read of Supervisors actually doing their job and not just wear the chevrons for intimidation purposes! Ooorah!
5 yrsReport
Shirley Corley Alred, profile picture
Shirley Corley Alred
What do they do with it after they find it?
5 yrsReport
Texas Department of Criminal Justice, profile picture
Texas Department of Criminal Justice
Nothing ever left the port. The substance was seized by Federal authorities.
5 yrsReport
Mistina Branham, profile picture
Mistina Branham
Omg... Someones gonna b in big trouble, lol! Glad that Dope wasnt able to hit the streets & our Children. But, Oh Lordy the ppl who made that mistake is gonna be hating life real soon. And I hate to think that more ppl will b hurt over dam drugs. So sick & tired of it from every aspect!!!
5 yrsReport
Texas Department of Criminal Justice, profile picture
Texas Department of Criminal Justice
Doug Halward This shipment of bananas was not intended to go to TDCJ. It was donated once the bananas were found to be too ripe to make it to their intended destination.
5 yrsReport
Sam Gamel, profile picture
Sam Gamel
The inmates would never got any of the bananas anyways the guards would so they need to investigate
5 yrsReport
Texas Department of Criminal Justice, profile picture
Texas Department of Criminal Justice
They were not originally intended to go to TDCJ. They were donated once the bananas were found to be too ripe to reach their original destination.
5 yrsReport
Amber McDaniel, profile picture
Amber McDaniel
I doubt that large of an amount of drugs would be headed for prison. It was obviously meant for another recipient. Someone is going to be killed for this mistake.
Excellent catch boys!!!
5 yrsReport
Texas Department of Criminal Justice, profile picture
Texas Department of Criminal Justice
You are correct. The shipment was intended for a different destination, but was donated to TDCJ once the bananas were found to be too ripe to make it there.
5 yrsReport
Dome For, profile picture
Dome For
If the officials would give this ammount of cocain for free to the people, nobody would buy cocaine, and the dealers would get bankrott fast...but nobody is sharing this wonderfull idea ^^
5 yrsReport
Ron Bilodeau, profile picture
Ron Bilodeau
SO! If the bananas had made it to the prison, then what ? SOMEONE was waiting for those " bananas". HMMM.????
5 yrsReport
Texas Department of Criminal Justice, profile picture
Texas Department of Criminal Justice
The bananas were only headed to TDCJ after they were donated because they were found to be too ripe to make it to their intended destination.
5 yrsReport
Michael A Peters, profile picture
Michael A Peters
Sadly it was only by accident they found this. You have to ask, how much made it through and by what other methods
5 yrsReport
Gregory Graves, profile picture
Gregory Graves
looks like a message from someone saying they can deliver to anyone anywhere . this is just a drop in a bucket compared to what is brought into our country.
5 yrsReport
Juliana Tough, profile picture
Juliana Tough
This is treasus, you people are fighting hard to abolish or reduce this evil act, while others are trying to put more fuel to escalate. This world do not trust no man, only trust yourself. Bravo to the Gray.
5 yrsReport
David A Smith, profile picture
David A Smith
Worked for tdc for over a decade, nothing is "donated" to specific units. It has to go thru logistics. I call bs. They r just trying to shine a good night on the agency since they need alot of people.
5 yrsReport
Tracey Lovato, profile picture
Tracey Lovato
Way to go guys in finding this crap and keeping it from getting into the prison. There are still some honest officers doing the right thing.
5 yrsReport
Rene Garcia, profile picture
Rene Garcia
Something wrong with this story. If the boxes were strapped together on a pallet, how did the one box feel different? Maybe they cut the straps first in order to load the boxes and then felt the difference in boxes? I call B. S.
5 yrsReport
Tavarikus Warfield, profile picture
Tavarikus Warfield
Anybody else besides me not buying this bs story? That shipment was shipped to the correct place. Things just didn’t go as they normally do this time🤷🏾‍♂️
5 yrsReport
Charles Doughtie, profile picture
Charles Doughtie
And how much goes through undetected. The drug cartels are in our prisons, and liberals think guvamint can keep guns away from street criminals? But you don't need, should not have, a gun at home?
5 yrsReport
Lee Baird, profile picture
Lee Baird
Now why would someone donat boxes of bananas that had bricks of cocaine in them hmmmm did someone screw up those kind of screw ups aren't Easley forgotten nor forgiven Easley I would hate to be the one that screwed up and gave away all those brick WOW
5 yrsReport
David Sikorski, profile picture
David Sikorski
That's why I am happy I don't haul.produce any more. They can slip it on a load . If found and not knowingly hauling it how the heck do you prove as a driver you are innocent.Would cost you thousands in lawyer fees.
5 yrsReport
Matthew Campbell, profile picture
Matthew Campbell
yes they should have never put their faces on social media all they had to do was just congratulate and just like they say somebody's looking for that and they know what they look like and where they work
5 yrsReport
Terry Wright, profile picture
Terry Wright
This is to distract of what’s really going on. The war on drugs has always been a distraction and will continue to be
5 yrsReport
David Ruiz, profile picture
David Ruiz
I just hope those officers are protected now. Someone lost a lot of money and no bad guys were caught. So who pays for that ? Why would tdcj say where are they from and what rank are they. They put a pic. Of them but with a little blurr. That's just my opinion
5 yrsReport
Tim Shaw, profile picture
Tim Shaw
Now imagine if you will, all the crap shipped here from China in containers. If you have ever seen The Port of Long Beach in CA, it’s an ocean of containers. One container of Nikes might have (I think I read) 45 pallets of shoes. Just $50 pounds of heroin hidden within those shoeboxes would have the street value of $10 million. Now times that by shipments 24/7.
Go south and NAFTA traffic flows the same way. Impossible to check all of it.
5 yrsReport
Angie Newman McClellan, profile picture
Angie Newman McClellan
As a retired TDCJ CO V, you did good today men. Thanks for being observant as you were trained and then suspicious.
5 yrsReport
Alicia Castaneda, profile picture
Alicia Castaneda
Way to go Tdcj brothers and sisters In gray. When I read these stories it reminds me how underpaid we are and how the badge we wear isn't recognized enough.
5 yrsReport
Willie Sawyer, profile picture
Willie Sawyer
Sounds kinda fishy. Probably smells kinda fishy since it came from Freeport with a ltttle scent of Dow chemical co. also. Is that a regular thing to get produce from Freeport.
5 yrsReport
Pam Kirkpatrick, profile picture
Pam Kirkpatrick
Either way someone's dead for sure...think about where it was suppose to go cause surely it wasn't gonna be hid out in the prison....or was it 🤔
5 yrsReport
Jesse James, profile picture
Jesse James
I’d bet the forklift driver at the shed that loaded the truck goofed and put those pallets on the wrong truck...hate to be in his shoes
5 yrsReport
Terry Harrington Jennings, profile picture
Terry Harrington Jennings
So was this headed to the prison?
5 yrsReport
Texas Department of Criminal Justice, profile picture
Texas Department of Criminal Justice
No, the shipment was heading to a different destination. 2 pallets in that shipment were donated to TDCJ because they were to ripe to make it to the intended destination.
5 yrsReport
Jeremy Hickson, profile picture
Jeremy Hickson
540 packages and $17.8 million dollars. Cartel ain't worried about that. Now let me get 4 of those "packages" and make a come up💵💵💵💵💰💰💰
5 yrsReport
Mary Calderon, profile picture
Mary Calderon
Somebody is gonna pay for that don’t be surprised if people lose their lives over this. Great find but I bet the Cartel aren’t too happy
5 yrsReport
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