Cocaine seized in Gresham, Oregon traffic stop

by Lynne Terry, The Oregonian

http://www.oregonlive.com/news/index.ss ... _stop.html

Friday March 13, 2009, 11:26 AM

A traffic stop in Gresham turned into a drug bust Thursday evening, according to Multnomah County Sheriff's Office.

Special investigators pulled over two men in a Ford Taurus near Northeast 191st Avenue and Glisan Street. When the passenger, 37-year-old Javier Luciano-Ramirez, got out of the car and raised his hands, a half pound of cocaine with a street value of $100,000 tumbled out of his shirt, said sheriff's spokesman Deputy Paul H. McRedmond.

Luciano-Ramirez and the driver, 32-year-old Alfredo Lugo-Velez, were arrested on drug allegations and jailed in Multnomah County Detention Center. Both men are Mexican nationals and in the country illegally, McRedmond said. They have been placed on immigration holds.

Their arrest follows the seizure Wednesday evening of 2.5 pounds of "gunpowder" cocaine in the same general area. In that case, a man in a black Ford Taurus was stopped near Northeast 182nd Avenue and Burnside.

The driver, 40-year-old Francisco L. Leon, is being held in the Justice Center jail on drug charges. McRedmond said he is a Mexican national and has an immigration hold.

-- Lynne Terry; lynneterry@news.oregonian.com

Booking Information - http://www.mcso.us/PAID