Soldiers Seize Drug Slingshot on US-Mexico Border

In what seems like a scene straight out of a Monty Python movie, Mexican soldiers seized a giant catapult believed to have been used to fling drugs across the U.S.-Mexico border.

Acting on a tip from the U.S. Border Patrol, the Mexican military confiscated 45 pounds of marijuana, an SUV and a metal-framed catapult just south of the border with Arizona last Friday. The U.S. tip was based on surveillance video of the border region, recorded by National Guard troops deployed to help U.S. border guards.

In one clip, a group of men appeared to be testing the huge device, pulling down its metal beam, loading it and attempting to snap its powerful elastic band, the Tucson Sentinel reported. The whole thing was mounted on a trailer dragged right up to a metal fence on the U.S. border.

“It looks like a medieval catapult that was used back in the day,” Tucson sector Border Patrol spokesman David Jimarez told Reuters. “I have not seen anything like that in my time before as a Border Patrol agent … although we are trained to handle any kind of a threat that comes over that border.”

The catapult, 3 yards high, was capable of launching 4.4 pounds of marijuana at a time, an unidentified Mexican army officer told Arizona TV station KVOA. The men who had been spotted testing the device managed to run off before Mexican soldiers were able to catch them.