Sheriff Sam Page (left) displays weapons and cocaine that were seized.
Posted on 08/25/2006 2:05:23 PM PDT by Libloather
Cocaine seized, 4 arrested in bust
By Sonja Elmquist
Staff Writer
Sheriff Sam Page (left) displays weapons and cocaine that were seized.
WENTWORTH -- Four illegal immigrants were arrested Tuesday in western Rockingham County and charged with trafficking nearly 18 pounds of powder cocaine valued at $800,000. Deputies seized the drugs, automatic weapons and two vehicles.
Sheriff Sam Page said Thursday that he didn't know if the drugs were destined for Rockingham County or if the alleged traffickers were just passing through.
Either way, Page said, it was a danger.
"When you have 171/2 or 18 pounds of cocaine going through your county, it could very well be coming to your county," Page said.
The seized drugs sat in four large, plastic-wrapped bricks on a table in his office with the seized weapons.
Page said investigators had not determined whether the shipment was part of a larger drug smuggling operation.
Noe Alejandro Vera Ramirez, 32, and Paulino Castro Cortez, 27, both of Winston-Salem, were charged with trafficking in cocaine by possession and trafficking in cocaine by transporting.
They were in a black Jeep Cherokee and carrying the entire 8 kilograms of cocaine, as well as a .45-caliber semiautomatic pistol, Page said.
Arturo Lopez Herrero, 26, of Winston-Salem and Ignacio Olivas Galindo, 36, of Roy, Wash., were driving a blue Chevrolet pickup truck along with Ramirez and Cortez.
Herrero and Galindo were charged with conspiring to traffic in cocaine. A .380-caliber semiautomatic pistol was seized from the pickup truck.
Each was held under a $16 million bond.
A three-year federal drug investigation led to a traffic stop on U.S. 1 in Wake Forest on Wednesday and the discovery of 220 pounds of cocaine -- one of North Carolina's largest drug busts in recent history -- inside a recreational vehicle and the car being towed behind it.
Federal authorities announced the arrests Thursday of five men suspected of being members of a drug trafficking ring -- three from Wake Forest -- in connection with the seizure of 100 individually wrapped kilogram packets of cocaine.
The seized cocaine may be worth as much as $10 million, using Drug Enforcement Administration estimates that powder cocaine fetches $100 a gram on North Carolina streets.
Arrested Thursday were Carlos Humberto Zamarripa, Carlos Humberto Ahmada and Fernando Sanchez-Almaraz, all of Wake Forest; and Juan Carlos Ruelas and Betram J. Sinclair, both of Phoenix.
All five men, whose addresses and ages were not available, are charged in federal court with possession of more than five kilograms of cocaine with intent to distribute, according to court records.
**SNIP**
http://www.newsobserver.com/102/story/478846.html
where are the automatic weapons, I see to pistols... numbnut reporters...
Taking Jobs away from hard working American Drug Dealers!
just hard working mexicans, haha, what a joke.
at least go to a consumption tax and have them pull their weight!
ping
Just more friendly illegals here to do "Jobs Americans Won't Do™".
Just a drop in the bucket.
You have to break the price down to grams in order to get 800k. I wish the cops and the press would tell the truth just once.
And NO I don't do coke.
Just publish their photographs and let 'em go. Much cheaper on the U.S. taxpayers. Please...
This is just the beginning of the plague.
LOL, that is just great. Put a dent in the job market of American drug dealers
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