US-Mexico border bridegroom smuggled heroin
A US man who wed his Mexican fiancée at the border with Mexico last month turned out to be a convicted heroin smuggler, local media report.
Background checks failed to reveal Brian Houston was awaiting sentencing in San Diego at the time, and the US Border Patrol approved the event.
The wedding was part of a “Door of Hope” event which allows meetings between people not allowed to cross.
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Houston, who is from San Diego, signed official Mexican documents with Evelia Reyes of Mexico, making them husband and wife.
“It’s a statement that love has no borders,” Houston said afterwards.
He had been arrested in February at another border crossing after police found 19.5kg (43lb) of heroin, 21kg of methamphetamine and 19.5kg of cocaine in his car, according to the complaint.
Opioid crisis linked to two-year drop in US life expectancy
US life expectancy fell last year for a second year running for the first time in more than half a century, reportedly driven by the worsening opioid crisis.
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Years of over-prescription of opioid painkillers in the US has created a nationwide addiction crisis, with patients turning to heroin and other street drugs when their prescriptions stop.
“The key factor in all this is the increase in drug overdose deaths,” said Robert Anderson, the chief of mortality statistics at the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), calling the two-year life expectancy drop “shocking”.
The only question I have is why was someone caught smuggling 43 pounds of heroin not executed?
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