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Drug Dog ‘Chocolate’ Sniffs Out 249 Kilos of Cocaine and Fentanyl Under a Trailer Floor at Tijuana’s Otay Crossing — the Same Dog’s Second Big Find This Month

By The Narco Blog · September 27, 2026 · Updated September 30, 2026

A detained truck driver with his face blurred stands in front of a Guardia Nacional banner and an open trailer at night, flanked by National Guard troops, customs officers and a sniffer dog
The detained driver, his face blurred by authorities, stands before the tractor-trailer at the Otay crossing in Tijuana, flanked by National Guard and customs personnel and the drug dog Chocolate. Photo: Mexican federal government, via Semanario ZETA.

A customs detection dog named Chocolate led Mexican inspectors to 195 packages of cocaine and fentanyl, about 249 kilograms in all, hidden in a false floor of a tractor-trailer at the Garita de Otay border crossing in Tijuana, across from San Diego, Mexico’s federal Security Cabinet announced Saturday, Sept. 26, 2026. The truck’s driver was detained.

How the load was found

According to the Security Cabinet statement, as reported by El Universal on Sept. 26, officers from Mexico’s National Customs Agency (ANAM), working with the Defense Ministry, the National Guard and the federal Security Ministry (SSPC), stopped the driver as he tried to go through the crossing. With the dog’s help, they found a double bottom in the truck’s cargo box. The Cabinet said it held 184 packages of cocaine and 11 of fentanyl.

Tijuana weekly Semanario ZETA reported that the inspection took place on Friday, Sept. 25. The truck went through X-ray equipment and Chocolate then detected the hidden compartment, ZETA said. Its account described the load as mostly cocaine with at least 10 packages of fentanyl.

Green plastic-wrapped packages marked with black writing lie in a narrow compartment cut into the wooden floor of a trailer
Packages found in a hidden compartment in the floor of the trailer’s box. Photo: Mexican federal government, via Semanario ZETA.

The driver, the truck and the drugs were handed to federal prosecutors (Ministerio Público), who will decide his legal situation. Authorities did not release his name.

Chocolate’s second big find in September

ZETA reported that the same dog found 76 kilograms of cocaine, split into dozens of packages, at the Otay customs facility on Sept. 4. In that case, a 46-year-old man identified as Juan Alberto Díaz Sánchez was arrested driving a dry-box tractor-trailer “loaded with tunas” (prickly pears). A judge ruled the arrest legal, and he remains in mandatory pretrial detention, according to ZETA.

A brown Belgian Malinois-type sniffer dog on a leash stands beside a white trailer at a customs inspection yard
Chocolate, the customs detection dog credited with flagging the load. Photo: Mexican federal government, via Semanario ZETA.

Tijuana’s ports have seen several big seizures this month. On Sept. 18, ANAM said another dog, Rini, had found about 1,357 kilos of methamphetamine and 10 kilos of fentanyl in boxes of cargo in the export area of Tijuana customs, as The Narco Blog reported.

What is not known

PorEsto noted on Sept. 26 that the Security Cabinet did not say where the shipment came from or where it was going. None of the reports tie the driver or the load to a cartel or any criminal group. He has not been charged in court, as far as has been reported, and is presumed innocent.

Sources

Reported Sept. 27, 2026, from Mexican media accounts of a Security Cabinet announcement made Sept. 26. Authorities did not name the driver, give separate weights for the cocaine and fentanyl, or say where the truck was headed.