MPD Lt. Mike Fisher with a large cache of confiscated marijuana in 1983. MIKE ZERBY/Star Tribune
A cache of marijuana with a street value of more than $450,000 was seized Wednesday night by local police and federal agents, hidden inside a minivan that arrived in Minneapolis from the West Coast on the back of a car-carrier truck, authorities said.
The 47 kilograms, or about 105 pounds, of pot were bound for the city's North Side, according to a criminal complaint filed Friday in Hennepin County District Court.
A probable cause statement said that based on the arresting officer's "training and experience," coordinating a "cross-country transport" of such a large quantity of drugs was "inconsistent with personal use, and indicates intent to sell." Police estimated the shipment would have fetched more than $450,000 on the streets.
A call to the Drug Enforcement Agency's Minneapolis office wasn't returned on Friday.
The shipment, packaged in 500-gram bricks and stashed inside large plastic storage bins, was confiscated from a green Dodge Caravan van, which had made the approximately 2,000-mile journey from California strapped atop a car-carrier, the complaint said.
Authorities, who had been tracking the truck since it left the West Coast, followed it to a "delivery destination" near the corner of Dowling Avenue and Humboldt Avenue in north Minneapolis, officials said. There, they saw its driver "meet with an individual who signed some paperwork and took possession of the vehicle's keys," the complaint said, referring to the drug-laden van.
Shortly afterward, federal agents and MPD officers swarmed the scene of the drop-off, and arrested three men who were seen unloading the van from the carrier, officials said.
