Nephi Police interdiction efforts help to net 100 lb. meth seizure on I-15

NEPHI, Utah – It was the largest drug bust in the Nephi Police Department’s history — 100 lbs. of meth was seized during a traffic stop on Interstate 15 Saturday.

According to jail documents, the driver, identified by investigators as Carlos Guadalupe Navarro Ornelas, 37, of Illinois, told officers he was on his way to visit family in California.

When elements of the man’s story raised suspicion, officers said they deployed a K-9, which indicated possible drugs in the car.

“They searched the vehicle and recovered 100 lbs. of methamphetamine,” Lt. Jace Peterson said during an interview with KSL TV. “They were one lb. packages — zip-loc baggies of a pound of meth — and (there were) 100 of them.”

Police estimated the drugs to hold a street value of well over $900,000.

The driver was booked into the Juab County Jail on suspicion of drug possession with the intent to distribute.

On Monday, officers said interdiction efforts had been a priority for their department as they hoped to keep drugs out of their community.

“We’re a town of 8,000 people, but on an average day we get anywhere from 5,000 to 15,000 people that get off the freeway and enter our city,” Peterson said. “I-15 is a major drug corridor, so it naturally ends up here.”

Peterson said out of the 12 officers employed by the department, at least four were trained in drug interdiction techniques, and K-9 Grizz also aided in those efforts, as the dog did Saturday.

“Small towns are typically hit pretty hard with the narcotics issues, so we want to take a proactive approach to it,”  Peterson told KSL TV. “If we can stop the runners, the traffickers, the dealers, then that’s going to keep it from getting into the individual residents’ hands.”

Nephi Police have had their share of drug seizures. Peterson said prior to the Saturday stop, the department had seized 250 lbs. of drugs over the past year-and-a-half.

He said officers were specifically watching I-15 Saturday for potential drug traffickers and he commended those officers’ efforts.

“The officers that were involved in it were ecstatic,” Peterson said. “It’s a heck of a good feeling.”