DALLAS – Police got quite a surprise Wednesday morning when they discovered cocaine worth $400,000 secretly hidden in a 2004 black Infiniti that they have been driving two months, officials said.
An officer cleaning the car seized at a drug house earlier this year discovered the nearly 50 pounds of cocaine carefully hidden in hydraulically controlled compartments at the northeast patrol station.
"These compartments have recently been more and more popular with drug operations," Deputy Chief Julian Bernal, commander of the narcotics division, said in Wednesday's online edition of The Dallas Morning News.
Undercover Dallas police put the two-door black Infiniti into police service on May 7 after seizing it at a drug house.
Bernal said police officers in March responded to a report of gunshots and masked individuals beating a man behind a house in northwest Dallas.
There, police found blood on a 1999 Honda and a trail of blood leading into the home.
No one was home, but police found $34,000 in cash, drug scales and a small amount of cocaine. Police also seized the Honda and the Infiniti.
Bernal said the narcotics division searched both of the vehicles and found nothing. The Honda was sold at auction.
Bernal said police plan to contact the person who bought it to find out if drugs were hidden in the Honda, too. And, they are also trying to find out who owned the cocaine they have been secretly driving around with.
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