The daughter of Stephen Cohen www.adultfyi.com/read.aspx?ID=9014 was popped on a marijuana beef.
SAN YSIDRO - A prescreened driver who passed a security background check was arrested with drugs in her car as she attempted to cross the U.S.-Mexico border, U.S. Customs officials said yesterday.
A suspicious border inspector stopped 21-year-old Jhuliana Aramis Cohen of Tijuana in one of the SENTRI lanes at the San Ysidro crossing. Cohen was jailed Wednesday after a search turned up 202 pounds of marijuana in the trunk of her car, and she has pleaded not guilty in federal court.
According to court documents, Cohen told investigators she knew there was marijuana in the car and had agreed to smuggle it into San Diego for $500.
About 80,000 people pay up to $129 each to enroll in SENTRI, or Secure Electronic Network for Travelers Rapid Inspection.
Adele Fasano, field operations director for U.S. Customs and Border Protection in San Diego, said that despite "a very small number" of violations each year, the majority of SENTRI participants were law-abiding travelers.
A transponder in SENTRI-registered vehicles beams passenger information to U.S. inspectors as the vehicles approach a booth, similar to prepaid toll systems. If passengers' faces match those on file, they get less scrutiny than people in other lanes.
Two SENTRI lanes have been added at the San Ysidro crossing since May, doubling the number of lanes, following complaints that wait times were more than an hour.
