Oscar Lara-Acosta, 33, and his passenger Junvantino Villalba-Leyva, 45, were arrested during a routine traffic stop when Pueblo County Sheriff's deputies discovered 9.5 pounds of crystal meth in their car, according to the Pueblo County Sheriff’s Office.
Lara-Acosta’s green Chevy Tahoe was seen weaving across the center divider while traveling northbound on I-25 around 5:30 p.m., Thursday afternoon so the Pueblo County sheriff’s deputies pulled the pair over.
The suspects, who were reportedly from California were driving a car with Nebraska plates and only had Mexican IDs on them, The Pueblo Cheftain reports. Lara-Acosta claimed his strange driving was due to the pair looking for deer, but the deputies believed that the two men were acting nervously and their stories were inconsistent with their behavior.
Lara-Acosta agreed to let the officers search his car. And, the deputies, along with help from their drug-sniffing police dog, discovered much more than expected: A non-factory compartment built into the car containing the large amount of crystal methamphetamine with an approximate street value of $750,000.
The Denver Post reports that federal authorities consider I-25 to be one of the primary roads that drug traffickers use to transport illegal narcotics to Denver and the rest of the nation given its central location in the United States.
Lara-Acosta and Villalba-Leyva are being held at Pueblo County Jail in lieu of $100,000 bonds and immigration holds for possession of a schedule II controled substance.