San Juan, P.R. - The San Juan field office unveils its newest addition to the team, a high energy mobile x-ray system that uses an x-ray source to produce images of tankers, commercial trucks, sea and air containers and other vehicles for contraband.

This mobile x-ray vehicle is part of a family of imaging systems which provides a significant Non-Intrusive Inspection (NII) capability to aid CBP in stemming the flow of contraband into the U.S.

The U.S. Customs and Border Protection mission is to ensure all goods and persons entering and exiting the United States do so in compliance with all U.S. laws and regulations. CBP has the responsibility

click for hi-res New mobile x-ray system used at the field office in San Juan.

to regulate and control the borders against illegal entrants, terrorist entry, drugs and other contraband. This mission is accomplished primarily through physical inspection of cargo, conveyances, and persons as they enter the country.

This system is another tool CBP officers have in their toolbox to effectively and efficiently scan cargo, and conveyances as part of the CBP layered defense.

This state of the art vehicle will be part of an ever growing pool of high tech equipment assigned to Puerto Rico such as the Radiation Portal Monitors, both fixed and mobile, which screen cars, trucks and other conveyances for the presence of radioactive and nuclear materials. Puerto Rico has three additional large-scale imaging systems to assist in the detection of illegal substances as well as Personal Radiation Detectors and the Radiation Isotope Identification Devices, portable instruments capable of detecting and/or identifying radiation.

If there is any technology available that meets CBPs needs and priorities, and is both operationally and economically feasible, CBP will make every effort to put that technology into use to secure our borders, said Marcelino Borges, director of field operations.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection is the unified border agency within the Department of Homeland Security charged with the management, control and protection of our nation's borders at and between the official ports of entry. CBP is charged with keeping terrorists and terrorist weapons out of the country while enforcing hundreds of U.S. laws.

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