Marijuana Catapult on the Mexican Border: Authorities seize device for flinging weed into the U.S.

Life

Sometimes you have to go back to the basics. For a crew of Mexican drug smugglers, that meant getting marijuana across the border and into the United States by way of catapult — an instrument of siege warfare dating back to about 400 B.C. Instead of lobbing boulders, spears or pots of fire, the device hurled nearly 50 pounds of weed at a time, according to CNN. 

Perhaps more interestingly for proponents of President Donald Trump's notorious border wall, the catapult in question was affixed to the existing fence, not far from the Douglas, Arizona, port of entry, about 120 miles southeast of Tucson. 

U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents discovered the contraption, seemingly made of "square tubing and a heavy spring welded together, with rope tied around parts of it," on Friday, CNN reported, scaring off a group of people nearby and later discovering bundles of weed in the vicinity. 

Mexican authorities seized the catapult and turned it over to CBP, which promptly took it apart. Still, it seemed they admired the ingenuity on display:

So while law enforcement claims a momentary victory, it's back to the drawing board for the drug-runners. With their working knowledge of fundamental physics, they're bound to figure something out. 

Correction: Feb. 15, 2017