Florida Agriculture and Consumer Services Commissioner Charles H. Bronson announced the arrest of two south Florida men for attempting to smuggle 540 stolen computer monitors into Florida.

The two suspects were arrested last week by officers at the department’s I-75 Interdiction Station 9-B South in Hamilton County, after a search of the cargo area of the tractor-trailer they were driving, turned up the computer monitors. The investigation determined that the monitors, which have an estimated retail value of $127,000, were stolen from a truck stop in Indiana.



The men-Mario Alvarez, 24, of Hialeah, and Antonio Gill, 51, of Miami-were charged with grand theft and dealing in stolen property. Each was booked into the Hamilton County Jail on $100,000 bond.



Bronson credited the State Attorney’s Office in the third Judicial Circuit and the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Department for their assistance in the on-going investigation.



The Hamilton County location where the two men were apprehended, is one of 22 such stations that the department operates in North Florida. Designed historically to keep plant pests and diseases out of Florida by checking the 12 million commercial vehicles that enter or leave the state each year, the stations are playing an increasingly important role in Florida’s homeland security efforts as they have detained several truckloads of illegal aliens and confiscated millions of dollars of drugs, stolen goods and other contraband in the last two years.