Hey guys,
I ran into a situation in my shop Friday afternoon that I wanted to use as a reminder about used vehicles.
Some of you know that my brother and I have a small restoration shop.
We have a customer that brought in his 1st gen Bronco for some major metal work a few weeks ago and, yesterday I finally was able to start some under dash disassembly. When I started to pull the blower housing from under the dash, I found a plastic baggie stuffed behind the blower housing.
20181109_141100_001 by
Mustang Shooter, on Flickr
The baggie contained 40 folded packages.
20181109_141121_001 by
Mustang Shooter, on Flickr
We opened 1 package up and it contained a white powder.
20181109_141420 by
Mustang Shooter, on Flickr
OK, so we are pretty sure that we have found an old drug transport stash, but what should I do next?
I called a family member that is former law enforcement and told him the situation. He said that I should never try to dispose of something like this on my own and should always call the local law enforcement, in our case it is the Sheriffs Dept., and to notify the vehicle owner.
I called my Sheriffs Dept., explained the situation and, the Deputy I talked to said he would send another Deputy to take possession of what we found.
When the Deputy arrived, I explained the situation showing him where I found the bag, that I would get him the vehicle owners contact info and, the owner was aware of what was happening and was ready to answer any questions that may come up.
When we showed him what we found, he confirmed that it was definitely a very old stash due to the appearance of the bag, dirt on the bag surface and the design of the individual packages. He also said that without a doubt it was heroin and, was the most street ready heroin he had ever seen.
After the Deputy took possession of the drug stash and was leaving, we all agreed that the owner was lucky nothing ever happened while he had been driving the Bronco.
After going throug this experience, I guess I want to suggest that you should always attempt to thuroghly check out a used vehicle when its purchased and that if you do encounter something, contact your local Police or Sheriff so they can properly dispose of anything found.
Later,
Dan