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Wednesday, December 6, 2006
Trooper seizes $1.9 million in cocaine
About 42 pounds were found in car after man stopped for tailgating

By Dan Galindo
JOURNAL REPORTER

A case of tailgating on U.S. 52 led the N.C. Highway Patrol to $1.9 million in cocaine hidden in a car.

Trooper J.S. Wooten stopped a northbound car in Forsyth County about 3:30 p.m. Monday for following another car too closely, said Lt. Everett Clendenin, a spokesman for the patrol in Raleigh.

Wooten and his supervisors were in training yesterday and unavailable for interviews. Clendenin gave a brief account of the arrest:

When Wooten spoke to the driver, the driver appeared nervous, Clendenin said.

The patrol identified the driver as Francisco Gerardo Martinez-Aranda, 30, of Mexico City.

Wooten felt that Martinez-Aranda's story about what he was doing in North Carolina didn't make sense.

"He mentioned several states," for where he was heading and where he had been, Clendenin said.

Court papers indicate that Martinez-Aranda told Wooten that he had been in the country for about four days.

Wooten got Martinez-Aranda's consent to search the car and found more than 19 kilograms, or about 42 pounds, of cocaine in a hidden compartment that Clendenin would only describe as in the back of the car.

Wooten arrested Martinez-Aranda on two counts of trafficking cocaine. The car, a 2003 Toyota Matrix, is registered in North Carolina but not to Martinez-Aranda.

Clendenin said that troopers were still investigating. The cocaine was estimated to have a value of $1.9 million.

Despite its size, it not the largest seizure in recent years, local law-enforcement agencies said, but precise figures were not available yesterday.

So far this year, Winston-Salem police have seized about 16.6 kilograms, or 37 pounds, of powdered cocaine and about 2.8 kilograms, or 6 pounds, of crack cocaine, although the police department's statistics do not include some cases investigated with other agencies.

Local drug-seizure numbers for the patrol were not available yesterday, Clendenin said.

• Dan Galindo can be reached at 727-7377 or at dgalindo@wsjournal.com.
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