Haywood County, TN—85 pounds of Fentanyl was found in a vehicle on 1-40 in West Tennessee Sunday evening and a Texas couple are currently being held on $5M bond in the Haywood County Jail.
Athena, a K9 from Haywood County, helped her handler find the drugs that were hidden within bags of fertilizer inside a tent placed within a tent bag.
On the evening of March 10th, agents from the West Tennessee Drug Task Force of the 30th Judicial District in Memphis conducted a traffic stop on a 2024 Toyota Tacoma with Florida registration, traveling eastbound on I-40 due to a traffic violation.
During the stop, law enforcement agents developed reasonable suspicion to employ a narcotics canine around the vehicle.
Upon receiving a positive alert for the odor of narcotics, the agents proceeded to search the vehicle, discovering 38.5 kilograms (85 pounds) of fentanyl concealed within bags of fertilizer and folded inside a tent placed within a tent bag.
Ernesto Ortiz, 42, and Maria Munoz-Arevalo, 25, from Humble, TX, were arrested on charges of delivering a Schedule II controlled substance and are currently held at the Haywood County Jail under a $5,000,000.00 bond. The wholesale value of these drugs are approximately $1m while the street value could approach nearly ten times that amount. The investigation is ongoing.
Drug Task Force Director Johnie Carter said, “Fentanyl can be deadly with as little as 2.0 milligrams able to cause an overdose. The CDC website’s most current data shows Tennessee to be ranked 2nd among overdose deaths in the United States in 2021 at 56.1 people per 100,000.”
The West Tennessee Violent Crime and Drug Task Force is comprised of full time Officers assigned from agencies within the 28th, 29th and 30th Judicial Districts. These districts encompass Shelby, Haywood, Crockett, Gibson, Dyer and Lake counties in west Tennessee and operates through agreements between District Attorneys Mulroy, Agee and Goodman.