Monday, January 17, 2011

Woman finds $280,000 of drugs in vacuum cleaner

On the first day of Christmas, my children gave to me … a vacuum cleaner packaged with $280,000 worth of drugs. Investigators say a Green Bay woman got quite a surprise on Dec. 25 when she opened the refurbished vacuum cleaner she'd been given, and discovered two pounds of crystal methamphetamine and 2.2 pounds of cocaine packaged inside the box.

"This was an 'are you kidding me' incident," said Lt. David Poteat, who heads the Brown County Drug Task Force.


YouTube link.

It's likely that a smuggler inserted the drugs into the vacuum cleaner box before the unit was shipped from the Juarez, Mexico, area, where it had been reconditioned, Poteat said. No one, including the Green Bay retailer who sold the vacuum, noticed anything amiss, he said, until the woman opened the package and called police.

Authorities say they're convinced the woman played no part in the drug shipment, and don't plan to charge her. They aren't identifying the woman, or the store where the vacuum was purchased, while the case is under investigation. Poteat said criminals use a variety of ways to get drugs into the Green Bay market, including sneaking them into packages containing other items.

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