SandBoxBlogs: Vail Daily "Friday night felonies"

Once again our K-9 heroes come through!  Good boy, 'Tucker' !!  Thanks so much for your service.

Look what Tucker found (Click title to read the story):

Photo Credit:

Justin McCarty | Special to the Daily

"Avon Police Lt. Greg Daly, right, Eagle County Sheriff's Office Deputy Tim Comroe, left, and his German shepherd, Tucker, talk about their big drug bust Tuesday morning at the Avon Police Department. Police say they found the drugs in a truck they pulled over on Interstate 70 near Wolcott."

Photo Credit: Justin McCarty | Special to the Daily

Randy Wyrick:
"Tucker performed what is called a “positive alert,” indicating he'd found some drugs. He scratches the area where the drugs are when he finds them.

A dog's nose is 1,000 times more sensitive than a human's, and Comroe has trained Tucker to recognize the odors of six different drugs: marijuana, mushrooms, XTC, heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine.

Police say Fruth was hauling the Tucker trifecta.

Fruth was hauling about 13 pounds of high-grade marijuana, 6 ounces of black tar heroine, a bunch of pills, paraphernalia, vacuum-sealing machines and recloseable plastic bags, police say.

It appears it was grown in a hydroponics operation — no seeds or stems and very high potency, said Avon police chief Bob Ticer.

The ditch weed grown outside in most places is worth about $500 a pound. This marijuana is worth about $3,000 a pound; $300-$600 an ounce if you break it down that way, Ticer said.

The marijuana seized on Friday is estimated with a street value between $20,000 and $30,000. The heroin is worth between $6,000 and $10,000.

It comes into the U.S. either through Mexico or a West Coast seaport and is trucked along Interstate 70 to major cities on the East Coast or Midwest.

Drug traffickers use America's east/west interstate highways as a major part of their distribution system. The further east drugs go the more they're worth, Ticer said.

The drugs go east, the money comes back west to drug cartels, then the cycle begins again.

“The money goes right back to the cartels to fund organized crime and terrorist organizations,” Ticer said. “When people think of marijuana, or medical marijuana, they don't think of cartels, but the cartels certainly do think of them....” (Read more? Click title)
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