Surprise! Surprise! Law enforcement training exercise turns up 4 kilos of cocaine - 6/22/05

By PHYLISS BOATWRIGHT, C-TStaff Writer
A Volkeswagen Passat that Durham police had impounded more than six months ago, yielded far more than the training it was intended for at Piedmont Community College here Tuesday.

PCC’s Criminal Justice Technology Program was using the vehicle in an exercise to show how illegal drugs or other contraband can be stowed inconspicuously in cars and trucks. The Volkswagen Passat performed its role perfectly — and how.

During the exercise, to everyone’s stupefying surprise, the Passat gave up — four kilos of cocaine!

The cocaine, which authorities valued at $400,000, was discovered in a hidden compartment beneath the back seat of the Volkswagen, which had been impounded last October by the Durham Police Department. The drugs were taken back to Durham Tuesday afternoon and the case will be prosecuted in a Durham County court.

Over 200 law enforcement officers, hailing from as far away as Georgia and Washington, D.C., were on hand for the training exercise and were watching when Sgt. Mike Lewis of the Maryland State Police made the discovery.

Lewis, whom PCC’s Criminal Justice Coordinator Lee Tate said was the nation’s foremost authority on highway interdiction, said concealed compartments were fast becoming one of law enforcement’s biggest nightmares.

He said that during his 15-year career, he had seen around 800 of the hidden compartments, which can hide anything from drugs to stolen money to bombs, making it nearly impossible for law enforcement to detect the contraband.

In the wake of Sept. 11, 2001, said Lewis, with homeland security at the forefront of law enforcement, it is especially important for all officers to be trained in the detection of hidden compartments, for their own and the country’s safety as well as for prosecution of crimes.

The car in which the cocaine was discovered yesterday was impounded by the Durham sheriff’s department last October after two men from the Dominican Republic were found shot to death inside and near it. According to Detective Stokes Barnes with the Durham sheriff’s office, the driver was found dead behind the wheel and a passenger was dead outside the car. Both were killed by a .50 caliber gun, Barnes said.

The vehicle was thoroughly searched by Durham law enforcement in October, and a K-9 officer twice “alerted” at a spot near the backseat, where the cocaine was eventually found, MSP’s Sgt. Lewis explained.

During the initial search by Durham officers, however, the hidden compartment was not detected. Tuesday, however, Lewis said he noticed a “false floor” underneath the back seat of the car. He told the continuing education class of law enforcement officers, “I think it’s a false floor.”

After taking the seat out and pulling up the carpet, Lewis saw a spot of flat paint that didn’t look right to him. He then crawled underneath the car and used a chisel and hammer to force open the false floor. Inside were a hydraulic piston and “after-market wires,” said Lewis, which are indicative of false compartments. He then took a pair of “homemade alligator clips” and fully opened the space, to reveal the four bundles of cocaine.

A detective with the Durham sheriff’s department had requested the car be used during the training, said PCC Coordinator Tate. Given that the car was involved in a double homicide, the detective and others in Durham law enforcement were eager to see if they had missed anything during the initial search of the car.

Det. Barnes said that after the car was impounded, he and other Durham detectives “knew it had all the indications of a drug deal gone bad. We thought it was a good idea to bring the car [to the PCC training] and see,” he said, if anything else could be found.

And it turned out to be a fortuitous decision, as the drugs were found and 215 members of law enforcement were able to see first-hand what could be hidden in a car they might stop for routine traffic checks.

Lewis said the building of false compartments is a side business in the world of crime that can be quite lucrative. Very sophisticated false compartments are added to vehicles, at a cost of several thousand dollars. But, said Tate, in the world of drug dealing, “it is just a cost of doing business.”

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