Drug smugglers were caught red-handed early today, unloading about 2 tons of marijuana from a boat in La Jolla, and two men were arrested at Dog Beach about an hour later as a crowd scattered from another boat that came ashore there, police said.
The drug-smuggling boat near Neptune Place and Palomar Avenue was reported at 1:23 a.m., San Diego police Sgt. David Jennings said.
Police said Border Patrol agents were watching the boat and saw the smugglers unload it, then run off into a residential neighborhood. Border Patrol agents, along with SDPD officers, rounded up seven people, according to police.
At Dog Beach, as many as 40 people were reported running away from a boat near the 2200 block of Abbott Street at 2:37 a.m., and two men were arrested there, he said.
Jennings said police got conflicting reports about how many people may have been aboard the boat at Dog Beach, but he said 40 appeared to be on the high side.
