ADOT officers, human and K-9, seize over 1,000 pounds of marijuana

PHOENIX – Alert Arizona Department of Transportation officers, with assistance from a drug-sniffing dog, seized more than half a ton of marijuana from a phony delivery van Tuesday night, the agency said.

The vehicle first caught an officer’s eye on Interstate 15 in far northwest Arizona because of an out-of-state license plate, ADOT said Wednesday in a press release.

The van was marked like a vehicle from a commercial package delivery service, but it was suspicious because the delivery company’s local vehicles should have Arizona plates.

The officer alerted colleagues, who pulled the van over after seeing it commit several traffic violations as it headed northbound through the Virgin River Gorge.

After an ADOT K-9 unit named Hugo caught a whiff of illegal substances, a search turned up 1,113 pounds of marijuana in large bags.

The officers also found five grams of a mushroom-based hallucinogenic, three vials of steroids and $7,850 in cash.

A records check showed that the van was registered in North Carolina.

The driver, a 48-year-old man whose name was not released, was booked into a Nevada detention center pending his transfer to Mohave County jail in Kingman.

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