Cutting open potentially hundreds of expensive dolls and coming up dry was not something we wanted to do - and it was possible that they had sold all of the pills prior to our arrival or simply did not keep them in the house.įortunately, we had a trump card - Judge, our police narcotics dog (I was his handler). While we thought the pills may be stored inside a doll - an examination of several revealed no obvious tampering.
These were not your normal dealers - nor the normal stash house - and we were starting to get a little concerned. The couple had been kept separated the entire time and neither one was talking, and they were quite convincing that they did not know what Dilaudid was or anything about the CI and the controlled buy. We searched the usual places (where we found drugs 90 percent of the time), but came up empty. The house itself was immaculate and very clean. The front half/living room of the house had built-in shelves with over two hundred dolls. A confidential informant made a controlled buy that was the basis for our search warrant - purchasing a few pills - but the CI did not see a larger stash, nor where the pills were stored. Their house was in a nice middle class neighborhood, very neat and well-kept. The only creative / unique hiding location I saw in six years of working in vice/narcotics was from a couple that sold Dilaudid. In California is it illegal to outfit cars with these hidden compartments used for drugs, guns or cash. I have seen ones that required the vehicle to be placed in a particular gear such as park or reverse - then the air conditioning had to be set to maximum - which finally pushed one of the radio control buttons to release the compartment door. The switches are sometimes released by a magnet moved over a remote switch hidden under the hood, under or behind the dash board. I'm not talking about a simple on-and-off type toggle switch.
Some of the compartments are equipped with a trap door that is opened by triggering an electronic switch.
#Secret compartments and hidden spaces install#
There are a lot of people who install false hidden compartments in vehicles that are definitely difficult to locate - even when using an X-ray machine. That led to many seizures from other vehicles until the smugglers and transporters changed their methods of concealment. It was then we found about 18 pounds of black tar heroin, with a street value of about $580,000.00, hidden in a space between the intake manifold and the actual top of the engine. One of the vehicle experts studied the vehicle diagrams and engine specifications. Even the use of experienced K9 drug detection dogs were unable locate these loads.įinally, we got a break. We were missing heroin deliveries even when the trucks were legally detained by U.S. But these trucks proved troublesome for quite a while. We had task force officers working with us who were experts in locating the sophisticated methods of hiding contraband in passenger cars, trucks and commercial vehicles. Operating with information from an informant, we learned of heroin being smuggled in these trucks from Mexico. For a time, Mexican drug smugglers favored Ford F -100 and F-150 pickup trucks with large V8 engines.
These have included large pipes buried in yards and other pipes concealed with the building’s sewer pipes. Police have discovered much less elaborate hiding areas in homes that most commonly are used to hide contraband like drugs and firearms. We also found a much larger sub-level room that you had to access from a bathroom sink cabinet. However, we noticed discrepancies in the width of hallways and rooms that led us to find a small interior storage or hiding room on the main floor. He had several hidden compartments constructed within areas that almost went undiscovered. The primary suspect must have friends in the cabinet construction business. Once we secured all of the people and vehicles on the property, we spent an entire day searching the property. We had to use a large military-type vehicle to breach the steel gates. His compound was on a few acres, and he had built a tall wall around the entire property and an actual moat inside the walls and around the primary building which was his residence. Some years ago my agency investigated a member of an outlaw motorcycle gang who lived in a home in unincorporated area of south Santa Clara County.
Check them out and add your thoughts in the comments. A question posted recently on Quora asked, “What kinds of secret compartments have police found?” Two law enforcement professionals shared their stories on the topic, below.
0 kommentar(er)
