Earlier this year, CBP officers at the Hidalgo International Bridge seized $114,294 in cash from a 26-year-old U.S. citizen woman traveling southbound into Mexico — all of it found on her person, taped into twelve packages concealed beneath her clothing. She was arrested. Here is the full CBP account:
On April 24, 2022, CBP officers conducting outbound enforcement operations at the Hidalgo International Bridge encountered a blue Ford SUV making its way out of the United States toward Mexico. The vehicle was a taxi occupied by a 26-year-old U.S. citizen woman. The vehicle was selected for inspection and at the secondary inspection area, officers discovered numerous packages of tape wrapped U.S. currency on the woman’s person. A total of twelve packages with a total of $114,294 of undeclared currency was discovered on her person. The currency was seized by CBP. The subject was arrested, and the case was turned over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement-Homeland Security Investigations special agents for further investigation.
Why “On Her Person” Matters
CBP’s phrasing — “discovered on her person” — is doing a lot of work in this release. There is a meaningful legal difference between currency that is sitting in a bag undeclared and currency that has been taped into twelve packages and strapped to someone’s body. The first scenario is a failure to report under 31 U.S.C. § 5316. The second is bulk cash smuggling under 31 U.S.C. § 5332 — a federal felony that carries up to five years in prison on its own, entirely separate from whatever underlying criminal activity the money may be connected to.
Twelve tape-wrapped packages of currency distributed across someone’s body is not an accident or an oversight. It is preparation. It requires time, materials, and deliberate concealment. CBP officers are trained to detect exactly this — the physical profile of a person carrying currency strapped to their body looks different on imaging equipment and feels different during a pat-down than someone who simply has cash in their wallet. The concealment here is as damning as the amount.
The Arrest — What It Signals
As I noted when this case was first published: the arrest is telling. The overwhelming majority of currency seizure cases — including many involving significant amounts and clear concealment — are handled civilly. The traveler’s money is seized, they are released, and the dispute proceeds through CBP’s administrative forfeiture process. Arrests are the exception.
When CBP seizes currency and HSI arrests the courier on the spot, it means law enforcement has reason to believe the money is connected to criminal activity beyond the reporting violation itself — most commonly, that it represents drug trafficking proceeds being repatriated to Mexico, or that it is intended to fund a criminal organization operating across the border. The Hidalgo Bridge corridor is one of the most heavily surveilled southbound crossing points in the country precisely because it is a known route for exactly this type of bulk cash movement.
The fact that the woman was traveling in a taxi rather than her own vehicle, that the currency was distributed across twelve separate taped packages, and that the total exceeded $114,000 all point toward a courier scenario — someone hired to physically transport cash across the border on behalf of someone else. Couriers in drug trafficking networks are often U.S. citizens precisely because they attract less suspicion at the border than foreign nationals. Their U.S. citizenship does not protect them from federal prosecution, and in courier cases the government typically pursues criminal charges aggressively because the courier is a link in a chain they want to follow.
How This Differs From Cases We Typically Handle
Cases like this one are categorically different from the typical currency seizure matters our office handles. The vast majority of our clients are people who were carrying large amounts of cash for entirely legitimate reasons — real estate transactions, family support, medical procedures, vehicle purchases — and either did not know about the FinCEN 105 reporting requirement or misunderstood how it worked. Those cases are civil forfeitures. The money gets seized, no one gets arrested, and the path to recovery runs through CBP’s petition process or a CAFRA claim.
A case involving tape-wrapped packages of currency concealed on a person’s body, an arrest, and an active HSI criminal investigation is a different matter entirely. The civil forfeiture process still runs in parallel — CBP will still issue a notice of seizure, and the currency is still subject to the standard forfeiture procedures — but the criminal case is the primary event. Anyone in that situation needs criminal defense counsel immediately, not just a customs attorney.
If your situation is more like the former than the latter — if you were carrying cash for legitimate reasons and simply failed to file the form, or filed it inaccurately — read our customs money seizure legal guide and contact us for a free consultation. The most important thing you can do immediately after a seizure is stop talking to CBP and get a lawyer involved before any deadlines pass.
Have You Had Cash Seized by CBP at Hidalgo or Another Texas Port?
If CBP seized your cash at the Hidalgo International Bridge or anywhere else along the Texas border, contact us before taking any other steps. Read our customs money seizure legal guide or watch the video series, and reach out for a free consultation using the contact options on this page.