The Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) seized more than two pounds of cocaine Sunday after a Texas Highway Patrol Trooper stopped a vehicle in Potter County, said a press release Monday.
According to the release, at approximately 6:45 a.m., a DPS trooper stopped a 2015 Nissan Altima traveling east on IH 40 near Bushland for a traffic violation. During the stop, the trooper discovered two plastic-wrapped packages of cocaine taped to the top of the gas tank. The drugs weighed approximately 2.7 pounds, and are worth about $166,000.
The driver, Adalberto Soto, 45, of Tucson, Arizona, and passenger, Ana Cordova-Espinoza, 42, of Phoenix, were arrested and charged with felony possession of a controlled substance. Soto and Cordova-Espinoza were transported and booked into the Potter County jail.
The illegal drugs were allegedly being transported from Phoenix to Omaha, Nebraska.
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Comments
Taped to the top of the gas tank? These were clearly amateurs.
The ingenuity of traffickers has vastly improved, alongside much of the technology within the vehicles they use to transport their product.
"Traps" or secret compartments and modifications are utilized to conceal the payload. They can be anything as crudely planned out as this incident, to elaborate setups, involving modified intake manifolds or compartments which can only be unlocked by a formulaic sequence of button pushing and switch flipping within the cab.
The demand for such mods are high, even here in San Angelo.
The days of compacted spare tires and a/c vents are a thing of the past. You'd be surprised how much of our local street drugs got from point A, to B in one of these vehicles.
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