Sgt. Brad Elliott says an officer stopped a pickup truck towing a trailer on Interstate 40 about noon Friday and became suspicious after the driver and passenger appeared nervous. A search eventually turned up a hidden compartment in the trailer that was stuffed with the drugs. Friday on Interstate 40.The officer was patrolling the eastbound I-40 at about noon when he stopped a black Ford F350 just east of the Walnut Canyon exit for following too closely. He found the driver and the passenger, the truck's owner, nervous. Both gave conflicting stories. Both men gave the officer consent to search the truck, and he called for a K-9 unit to assist. The dog "alerted" on the truck and officers began searching the vehicle."They were underneath it, found a lot of indicators that the vehicle had been ... tooled, giving further rise in suspicion that something was amiss," said DPS Sgt. Brad Elliott.When they got to the small trailer hauling an ATV, one officer started banging on the bed. He noticed that the sounds were different, especially toward the front.That's where the officers uncovered 30 kilograms of cocaine, or about 66 pounds, bundled in black electrical tape and concealed under a false floor near the tongue. The access point was by way of the light housing, which concealed bolts that kept a flip-down panel in place in front of a sliding metal plate.
The cocaine was bound from Tucson to Iowa. The drugs have an estimated street value of about $480,000.Police seized the truck, trailer and ATV, along with the drugs and $12,000 in cash.Driver George A. Freeman, 34, of Tucson, and passenger Patrick L. Sams, 54, of Anamosa, Iowa, were booked into the Coconino County jail on charges of transportation of narcotic drugs for sale and possession of narcotic drugs for sale.
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