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SAN DIEGO — Federal officers staffing the Otay Mesa Port of Entry over the weekend caught a woman trying to smuggle more than 500 pounds of marijuana into the United States in the trunk of a car, officials reported Monday.

The 26-year-old Mexican national drove into the inspection station from Tijuana in a Nissan Sentra shortly after 7:30 a.m. Saturday, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection public affairs.

Alerted by a service dog to the presence of contraband inside the vehicle, the agents opened the luggage compartment and found 140 packages of cannabis, a haul with an estimated street value of about $290,000.

The personnel seized the car and the marijuana and turned over the suspect, whose name was withheld, to Homeland Security Investigations for processing.