are usually hired only to smuggle drug loads across the border . It 's a short drive or walk that offers quick cash but can carry serious consequences . Watch how teens get drugs across the border '' Drug cartels `` just need someone who can legitimately cross the border , '' said Bill Molaski , the El Paso Port Director for U.S. Customs and Border Protection . As an American , Santos could freely cross the El Paso-Juarez border and not raise suspicion . At age 15 , Santos says , he met `` a guy '' at a party who introduced him to drug kingpins in Ciudad Juarez , Mexico . `` You start off as a driver , '' Santos said . `` People feel like they can trust you , then you move up to something bigger . '' Two weeks later , he got a $ 4,000 job offer to drive his first load of marijuana across a bridge into El Paso . It was the beginning of a four-year smuggling career . `` I ca n't say I was n't nervous , '' Santos said . `` You kind of project yourself into another
EL PASO , Texas -LRB- CNN -RRB- -- Sitting in high school , math and history lessons never captured Danny Santos ' imagination . The drug-fueled streets of the Texas-Mexico border provided his education , and he was an excellent student . Danny Santos , 21 , works two part-time jobs and still does n't make as much as he did as a drug mule . Santos says he became one of the thousands of American and Mexican teenagers recruited into the dangerous world of drug smuggling . `` I did n't care . I had no conscience , '' Santos said at a boxing gym in El Paso , Texas . `` You 're young , and you 're naïve , and you think it 's easy . '' Santos ' journey into the underworld of teenage drug smuggling offers a glimpse into how drug cartels lure teenagers into doing their dirty work . US . Customs and Border Protection officials in El Paso and San Diego report that in recent months , they 've seen a rise in the number of juvenile drug smugglers getting busted at border checkpoints . They 're often called mules . These teenagers