Drug bust in Florida
$7 Million Worth Of Drugs Seized In Historic Bust
November 10, 2005
KISSIMMEE, Fla. -- Hidden compartments in a semi-truck were stuffed with drugs. Agents say a Kissimmee,Florida business was a shipping center for the illegal drugs, with the truck delivering them from Texas to Kissimmee,Florida. From there, the drugs would go out to Jacksonville, Orange and Osceola,Florida counties.
Undercover agents display some of the drugs that were seized.
The drug agents say the smugglers were creative, but not creative enough.
The vehicle looks just like a regular semi-truck, but a special metal compartment up front was sealed off to hide close to a ton of marijuana, and that wasn't the only thing the crooks were up to.
The truck also had a shipment of freezers, still packed in their boxes, but the compressors had been ripped out of the bottom to hide 48 kilos of cocaine.
In all, agents seized $7 million worth of drugs, the largest bust in Osceola County,Florida history. They found $88,000 in cash and arrested 19 people who were running the drugs from Texas to Central Florida.
"Obviously, for these guys here, anytime you put that many people in jail out of one organization, that is dismantling the organization or at least this part of it, so you are hurting it pretty good," said Lt. Lindell Harris, Osceola County,Florida Investigative Bureau.
Drug agents actually watched the truck as it pulled up to a transmission business in Kissimmee,Florida, where the drugs were transferred to a trailer. That led to a stash house in Orange County, which agents also busted.
The drug agents said this was also their largest investigative effort in Osceola County, Florida history. They're still working leads from it and there could even be more arrests.
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