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Authorities have seized 400 pounds of marijuana that they found inside Mexican-manufactured cars that had been delivered to dealerships in Northeast Ohio and Pennsylvania.
While conducting a delivery inspection at a Ford dealership in Kent, Ohio, dealership employees found a suspicious package in the spare tire compartment of a Ford Fusion. The package was discovered to be compressed marijuana.
Inside the car were several packages, meant to look like tires, with pot inside them. Packages were found in 14 other Ford Fusions in Portage, Stark and Columbiana counties in Ohio and one in Pennsylvania, totaling 400 pounds of marijuana.
via Record Courier:
Members of the Portage County Drug Task Force were called to a local Ford dealership where they discovered suspicious packages hidden in the trunks of new Ford Fusions during a delivery inspection. “It was in a wheel well where the spare tire goes,” Doak said. “Investigators learned the vehicles were shipped by train from Mexico to the Warren area.”
There were 15 new Ford Fusions that were on the rail car that had the spare tires removed, Doak said. “They were marked so they could visually checked by whoever was going to receive the drugs,” Doak said. “We found 15 packages in all, over $1 million in street value.”
An additional nine packages of marijuana were seized from Ford Fusions in Portage, Stark and Columbiana counties, along with one from Pennsylvania, Doak said. Agents from the Drug Enforcement Agency in Youngstown assisted.
“This isn’t the first time this has occurred,” Doak said. “There was a dealership in Minnesota. The authorities said the cars left a Mexico plant
The street value of the seized marijuana is over $1 million.
Both the Portage County Sheriff’s Office and the DEA are investigating.
