ST. GEORGE — More than $200,000 worth of suspected heroin was seized during a traffic stop on Interstate 15 when an officer found a car weaving in and out of its lane Friday afternoon.
On Friday, an officer noticed a white vehicle quickly changing lanes back and forth as it headed north on Interstate 15 near the Utah-Arizona border.
When the officer dropped in behind the vehicle, they noticed that the license plate cover was darkly tinted, making it difficult to read even at a close distance, according to arrest documents filed with the court.
When the officer conducted a traffic stop for the lane and plate violations, he spoke to the driver who reportedly said he had no driver’s license, and instead handed over an identification card issued out of Mexico, by which he was identified as 22-year-old Yostin Alexis Garcia Cota, of Sinaloa, Mexico.
His passenger then was identified as 20-year-old Davison Navarro, of West Jordan, by way of a permanent resident card he presented to the police.
An agent with the Department of Homeland Security Investigations Division would later determine the card to be fraudulent, the report states.
When asked for the car’s registration, the passenger opened the glove box to grab the vehicle documents. As he did so, the officer noticed a jar containing suspected marijuana, which is when both men were asked to exit the vehicle.
The driver reportedly told police the vehicle belonged to his cousin and said the marijuana found in the glove box belonged to the passenger, Navarro, who later confirmed the suspected marijuana was his. He also admitted that his ID card was fake, the report states.
Police say both men denied there was anything else illegal inside of the car. A search of the vehicle ensued.
Officers searched the interior of the car with no results, but when they searched the trunk area, they found a paper bag containing two brick-shaped packages that were vacuum-sealed and wrapped in towels. The packages were consistent with what officers typically find when kilos are being transported, the officer noted in the report.
When the packages were cut open, officers found they contained a substance consistent with heroin, which was later confirmed when a field analysis came back as positive.
The packages had a combined weight of more than 5 pounds.
Cota and Navarro were arrested and transported to Purgatory Correctional Facility facing second-degree felony possession with intent to distribute a controlled substance. Navarro faces an additional third-degree felony charge of possession of a forgery-writing device for the fake ID card presented to police.
The officer also requested they be held without bail since neither suspect was a U.S. citizen and thus presented a significant flight risk back to Mexico.
The request was approved when District Judge Keith C. Barnes signed a no-bail hold order the following morning, and both men remain in custody at this time.
Washington City Police Chief Jason Williams said the drug seizure was part of “Operation Pipeline,” and the street value of the heroin was estimated to be more than $226,000.
Williams added that the color of the heroin is unusual due to the packaging materials used.
This report is based on statements from court records, police or other responders and may not contain the full scope of findings. Persons arrested or charged are presumed innocent until found guilty in a court of law or as otherwise decided by a trier-of-fact.
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