BISMARCK: The US North Dakota Highway Patrol says 4.5 pounds of heroin with an estimated street value of $2.5 million found hidden in the trunk of a car during a traffic stop the patrol’s largest-ever seizure of heroin.
The car’s driver, Frank Anthony Villa, 47, of Tempe, Ariz., and passenger, Charles Ahumada, 56, were arrested and charged in Burleigh County District Court with possession of heroin with intent to deliver, a Class AA felony punishable by up to life in prison.
Villa also was charged with possession of methamphetamine and drug paraphernalia, both Class C felonies carrying up to five years in prison.
According to the complaint, a trooper stopped a Chevy Malibu with Nevada plates for speeding 64 mph in a 60-mph zone on Interstate 94 in west Bismarck and became suspicious while speaking with Villa.
The trooper asked for consent to search the car but was denied. He then used his K-9 to sniff for drugs, and the dog alerted on the car. A subsequent search uncovered 4.5 pounds of heroin in three vacuum-sealed bricks, wrapped in packing tape and covered in grease to avoid detection, the complaint states.
Authorities also found three used syringes, a baggie of methamphetamine, a digital scale wrapped in Christmas paper and a “food saver vacuum sealer,” the complaint states.
Pederson said he didn’t know where the two men were headed before the traffic stop. The car had been rented by Ahumada, the complaint states.
Villa’s bond was set at 10 percent of $250,000. Ahumada was scheduled to make his initial court appearance Wednesday afternoon.
The Bismarck Police Department, Burleigh County Sheriff’s Department and the local drug task force assisted with the incident, the patrol said.
North Dakota law enforcement officials have grown increasingly concerned about a rise in heroin and meth use and distribution, especially in western North Dakota’s Oil Patch. Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem reported in July that drug arrests in the state were up nearly 20 percent in 2013.
“They’re coming in in enormous quantities, and they are coming in with people who bring them right in from the cartels, and increasingly they are armed and exceedingly dangerous individuals,” he told a legislative committee.
