Cartel paying people to take money to Mexico in their luggage?

Houston Chronicle:

One bus passenger claimed a stranger approached her in a laundromat and offered $700 if she took a suitcase full of clothes to Mexico.

Another man accepted an offer of $500 in a plan hatched at a Latino night club.

And still another gave a similar account for why he and his daughter were among 14 travelers arrested on the same bus at the Texas-Mexico border, accused of trying to smuggle $3.1 million south.

Some riders were recruited in the Atlanta area, traveled through Texas and got busted in Hidalgo. The bizarre Sunday seizure — the largest single cash catch by Customs and Border Protection in the United States this year — was made public Wednesday.

It comes as agents turn more attention to an international pipeline even more valuable than the one that pumps illegal narcotics into the United States: the one that pulls cash proceeds back to Mexico.

CBP Commissioner Alan Bersin called the takedown a "magnificent achievement" and said it validated new efforts to snare contraband headed for Mexico.

A total of $39.2 million was seized headed south in 2009, compared to $29.4 million in 2008, according to CBP.

Of 41 passengers on the bus stopped Sunday in Hidalgo, 14 were arrested. Seven were U.S. citizens, and seven were Mexican citizens. They are charged with conspiring to break a law that requires anyone leaving the United States with a least $10,000 to declare it.

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I am skeptical of their stories. They remind me of the get away driver who claims he was just waiting for his buddy to cash a check in the 7-11 that was being robbed. You would have to be incredibly naive to believe that someone would give you money to take clothes to Mexico when they could send them by UPS or FedEx much cheaper and quicker. How could they be sure they were not transporting a bomb? Their story does not make much sense. Their lawyers need to start working on a plea bargain.