UFC’s Daniel Rodriguez Was Arrested By Mexican Border Patrol, Charged With Smuggling

UFC’s Daniel Rodriguez detailed why he spent eight months in prison in Tijuana, Mexico, shortly after his latest win the Octagon. 

Rodriguez defeated Kevin Holland in July 2025 and shortly thereafter totally disappeared from the limelight, and he revealed recently that he had spent eight months in a prison and would soon be talking more on the matter. 

He did speak more on the matter with Ariel Helwani, revealing that after the Holland win he went into celebratory mode and got picked up by Mexican Border Patrol with less than an ounce of marijuana. 

“[I] went on vacation, crossed the border of Mexico, and forgot I had a little bag of weed with me. It was under an ounce, got pulled over at the line, and got checked,” he said.

“The Border Patrol were tripping on the weed and I was thinking I was only going to be in there, like, probably the weekend, maybe a little bit shorter. But the laws over there, out there in Mexico are way different, they don’t play no games. So what I was thinking was going to be a little weekend or maybe overnight turned into eight months.”

Rodriguez said he was headed to Rosarito, and admitted he made a mistake in trying to get the herb over the border. “Anybody in Mexico knows the weed over there is just trash,” he added. “I made an honest mistake, and I ended up paying some time for it.” 

He reasoned that he was stopped because he had no license plate tags on the front of his vehicle. And he went on to warn people who were looking to cross the border: “It’s really hot because the whole Trump thing, I guess deporting everybody, and I guess they got a grudge against Americans.”

Rodriguez went on to say that although he tried to keep a low profile and conceal who he was, things didn’t work out they way he wanted them to. He went on to describe how he attempted to get out of his situation.

“Usually, there’s opportunities to get yourself out of certain situations over there in Mexico,” he said. “I was hoping for that. I had a wad full of cash with me at the time and [I] tried to see if I could catch a break. Tried to see if they could help me out, and because it wasn’t the police, it was actually the Border Patrol, the National Guard, they don’t play no games and I didn’t realize that.”

Rodriguez said he was charged with drug smuggling as a result, and trying to pay his way out of it didn’t work. He said he had considered getting rid of the marijuana before crossing the border, but came to the belief that nothing would happen, and in hindsight should have followed his gut. 

He then went into the process of getting out of prison, recalling several court dates he felt he had won and would make progress that ultimately did not come. 

“They really didn’t have no sense of urgency to move my case forward and it took so long,” he said. “Honestly, I was looking at probably even being there until late June or July. Luckily, I got an amazing legal team, and we were able to work some things out. But there’s a whole bunch of requirements and stuff behind it that I got to stick to.”