A 30-year-old man from India was arrested and accused of trying to smuggle about $5 million in marijuana from Canada to the United States, according to federal officials.
Gurpeet Singh, 30, was charged with unlawfully importing and possessing with the intent to distribute 1000 kilograms or more of marijuana, according to the United States Attorney’s Office for the Western District of New York. If convicted, Singh would face at least 10 years in prison.
Singh was trying to cross into the United States from Canada on Saturday while driving a commercial truck with 22 skids of peat moss, federal prosecutors said. The truck had Ontario, Canada license plates and tried to cross at the Peace Bridge in Niagara Falls, according to federal officials.
Singh told a Customs and Border Patrol officer he was taking the peat moss to Orange, Virginia, federal prosecutors said. A secondary exam found that behind five pallets of peat moss at the back of the trailer were 58 large cardboard boxes with vacuum-sealed bags of what federal officials say was marijuana.
The marijuana weighed 3,346.35 pounds and was worth about $5 million, according to federal prosecutors.
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