A routine check of a truck entering Canada from Washington state at a Lower Mainland border crossing has uncovered 64 bricks of a substance thought to be cocaine.

In an April 15 release, the Canada Border Services Agency announced that officers at a border crossing in the CBSA Pacific Highway District were performing a secondary check on a commercial tractor trailer containing a load of "personal care products" on March 18 when they noticed "anomalies".

(The Pacific Highway District includes five border crossings: Boundary Bay, Pacific Highway, Abbotsford-Huntingdon, Aldergrove, and Douglas.)

A subsequent unloading of the truck's contents turned up 64 wrapped bricks of a substance that tested positive as "suspected cocaine".

The CBSA's Pacific Region Intelligence Section and the RCMP's Federal Serious and Organized Crime unit attended the scene of the alleged attempted smuggling, with the RCMP taking both the driver and the suspected drugs into custody. The drugs weighed 71.5 kilograms and had an estimated value of $3.5 million.

Yvette LeBrun, director of the CBSA's Pacific Highway District, said in the release: “The discovery of 64 bricks of suspected cocaine is the direct result of diligent work by our border services officers,"  They kept Canadians safe by preventing these drugs from entering our communities.”