Federal and local authorities in San Diego arrested three men in the U.S. illegally – two from Mexico and one from El Salvador – after they allegedly transported nearly 8,000 pounds of methamphetamine worth more than $5 million earlier this week.

The incident took place on Monday around 7 p.m. during a joint narcotics investigation in the South Bay region, the San Diego County Sheriff’s Office announced Thursday evening.

SDCSO detectives and U.S. Border Patrol agents observed three vehicles they believed were being loaded with bundles of drugs. A federal complaint filed by the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Southern District of California said the vehicles were being loaded in a parking lot on Otay Mesa Road.

CBP OFFICERS SEIZE OVER $14M OF ALLEGED METHAMPHETAMINE AT SOUTHERN BORDER 

Two of those vehicles were driven toward a motel in San Ysidro, while the third vehicle went to a motel in Chula Vista, the sheriff’s office said. All three drivers were ultimately arrested.

They were identified by the Justice Department as 27-year-old Erick Omar Arriola, of El Salvador, and Mexican nationals Eugenio Lizama, 35, and Baltazar Rodriguez Reyes, 49.

Arriola is a felon convicted of driving under the influence, battery of a spouse and false imprisonment, the DOJ said.

‘ZOMBIE DRUG’ SMUGGLED ACROSS SOUTHERN BORDER A GROWING THREAT TO AMERICANS, DOCTOR WARNS 

Federal and local authorities involved in the seizure said there were 61 total bundles of methamphetamine in the three vehicles.  (San Diego County Sheriff’s Office)

When authorities searched their vehicles, they found a total of 61 bundles of methamphetamine, weighing more than 7,700 pounds and valued at around $5.5 million.

“It was one of the biggest seizures of methamphetamine in 2025 in the Southern District of California, and the most significant so far by the new Homeland Security Task Force San Diego, which was recently established by the Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security at the request of President Trump,” the DOJ said.

Methamphetamine was the drug detected inside the bundles, according to the San Diego County Sheriff’s Office. (San Diego County Sheriff’s Office)

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All three men were booked into the San Diego Central Jail and face charges related to conspiracy, transportation and possession of controlled substances for sales.

While the word “fossils” may have once once conjured images of elderly, nearsighted scientists toiling in silence in dank, dark basements, San Diego’s Natural History Museum is breathing new life into its collection with the addition of a $5.1 million Paleo Center that, yes, is downstairs and opens to the public on Friday.

The story of Amazement in the Basement, as “the Nat” has coined the exhibit, began 150 years ago when the museum was founded and continues today with curated highlights in the new Tom Deméré Paleontology Center, which finds fresh ways to connect San Diego with its antediluvian past.

“It’s the first time in our museum’s history that we’ve been able to combine both an exhibit and a real, active lab and collection space, so visitors will be able to not only explore an exhibit that displays the breadth and diversity of our collection, but they’ll be able to see paleontologists working in action and actually interact with them,” Abi Karkenny, director of exhibits at the Nat, told NBC 7 this week.

So, do you want to talk to a scientist while she makes a “cradle’ for the 120,000-year-old bison dug up in 2020 when workers paved the parking lot at Snapdragon Stadium in Mission Valley? That’s why the windows will usually be open in the research lab.

“It’s really the first time we’ve been able to bring visitors so close to the science that happens here, typically behind the scenes,” Karkenny said, adding, “I think the scientists are excited. You know, [they’re] always wanting to share their work with the public, they’re so passionate about what they do.”

And the specimens they’re working on, of course, will be constantly changing as they complete the tasks of preservation.

“[The] highlights of our Paleo Collection are often the things that were found right here in San Diego,” Karkenny said. “People are always fascinated to learn that so many of our fossils were found right here, right where we live and work and play. So, for example, we have … shells on display here that were found right under the museum while it was being constructed. And so that’s always mind-blowing for people: to find out that we live in such a fossil-rich area of the United States.”

Want to know what kind of fossils were dug up in Chula Vista? Carlsbad? Balboa Park? Well, in Mission Hills, for example, shark’s teeth and the bones of marine animals that were found are about 3.5 million years old. Just check out an exhibit case with drawers holding dozens of treasures from deep in the millennia. “See what’s in our drawers,” is how they put it.

A wall-size map of Southern California with mounted jewel cases containing fossils educates the young and the old by linking the ancient animals to where they were dug up in downtown San Diego (a half-million year old mammoth tooth and toe), Spring Valley (43 million-year-old crab), Mira Mesa (a squid-like animal; about 144 million years old) and Oceanside, where a mastodon leg bone from the Pleistocene Epoch 120,000 years ago was found.

The Paleo Center was conceived of just seven short years ago, though, back when the collection was housed both on site as well as at external storage facilities. Construction in Balboa Park, however, began in earnest in 2022. And if the site seems a bit industrial in design, that’s intentional.

“It’s meant to be a peek behind the curtain of our work,” Karkenny said, “and so much of the exhibit is inspired by what our collections spaces look like, both, you know, our warehouses that we used to have with super tall, 16-foot-high shelves full of specimens to the compactors that you see behind the scenes where you can roll the cabinets aside and see thousands of fossils, some as big as a boulder, but some as tiny as a grain of sand.”

Two of those towering orang shelves made the leap to the Nat, where they now hold everything from a stuffed mountain lion to the fossil of a whale skull. Remarkably, the 1.5 million specimens are across the hall, behind glass, visible to visitors and just steps away from the paleontologists working in the lab.

Although the exhibit is called the Paleo Center, it’s about more than just dinosaurs. Paleontology is, technically, the study of ancient life, especially from fossils.

“And so this was really created as a space to bring all the fossils together underground again, if you will, in one space and one home, but we also want visitors to know about all of the work being done to care for, study, protect fossils,” Karkenny said. “It’s not just for paleontology. The San Diego Natural History Museum does that work for all kinds of things: frogs, beetles, birds — an amazing diversity of specimens.”

Admission to the museum is $24 for adults — pro tip: buy online for $21.99 online — OR, grownups only have to fork over 12 bucks on Friday nights this summer, when they can take advantage of the Nat at Night to see the museum AND enjoy an adult beverage on the outdoor rooftop terrace. Kids 3-17? They’re $14 at the door daytime (or $12.99 on the website).

LIV Golf star Phil Mickelson reacted on social media as a local California lawmaker talked about millions of gallons of sewage being dumped from Mexico into the water near San Diego.

San Diego County District 5 Supervisor Jim Desmond spoke at a recent meeting about beaches around the historic Hotel Del being closed during Memorial Day weekend. He also mentioned Navy SEALs and other towns being affected by the sewage crisis from Mexico.

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Desmond said in the meeting that the only solution is for Mexico to build and maintain a treatment facility.

“Over Memorial Day weekend, beaches near the Hotel Del were shut down—again—because Mexico is dumping up to 10 million gallons of sewage into our waters every day,” Desmond added on X on Tuesday. “Our Navy SEALs are getting sick. Imperial Beach has been closed for three years straight. We’re paying 80% to treat Mexico’s sewage while they ignore decades of agreements and do nothing to fix their infrastructure.

“I introduced a common-sense proposal to apply pressure—including restricting border activity during health emergencies—until Mexico takes responsibility. Unfortunately, my colleagues voted it down, not wanting to pressure Mexico. San Diegans deserve better. I’m not backing down.”

Phil Mickelson (Jim Dedmon-Imagn Images)

MEXICAN SEWAGE GUSHING INTO NAVY SEAL TRAINING WATERS IS US’ ‘NEXT CAMP LEJEUNE,’ VETS WARN

Mickelson appeared to have his antenna up on the issue as well.

“Something about this doesn’t smell right,” he wrote in response to Desmond’s post.

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin said last month the U.S. and Mexico were on the verge of a deal regarding the sewage issue.

“This week, EPA transmitted to Mexico a proposed ‘100% solution’ that would PERMANENTLY END the decades-old crisis of raw sewage flowing in to the U.S. from Mexico. Next, technical groups from both nations will be meeting to work through the details necessary to hopefully reach an urgent agreement,” Zeldin wrote on X in May. 

Zeldin visited San Diego in April, where he announced talks with his government counterparts in Mexico to end the decades-long issue. The problem, blamed on outdated wastewater infrastructure, has persisted for decades but has spiraled in recent years as Tijuana’s population skyrocketed.

Tijuana, Mexico, top, and San Diego (Getty Images)

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In February, the Department of Defense’s inspector general released a report finding that the Naval Special Warfare Center reported 1,168 cases of acute gastrointestinal illnesses among SEAL candidates between January 2019 and May 2023 that were attributed to the contaminated water.

Fox News’ Emma Colton contributed to this report.

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