DEALERS GET CREATIVE WHEN HIDING THEIR DRUGS

When people swap recipes for ''pepper pot,'' this isn't what they're talking
about.

A marijuana delivery being driven to Lebanon was discovered by police hidden
in chili and jalapeno pepper cans in January.

That's nothing out of the ordinary, say drug enforcement agents and law
officers all over Middle Tennessee. The unusual becomes the norm when it
comes to drug dealers trying to hide their stashes, they say.

''Every way you can imagine and beyond the imaginable,'' Wilson County
Sheriff Terry Ashe said. ''I've seen it hollowed out in car mufflers and
stuffed in spare tires of cars with the air blown back in. Inside toys,
footballs and basketballs.''

Gas tanks, car batteries, diapers, laundry detergent boxes, mailed packages,
compartments under the floor of a house, car dashboards, radios and TVs are
more places police say drugs are hidden.

''Once we seized a truck we knew had cocaine in it, but we had to search two
days before we could find it,'' said Metro Police detective Jesse Burchwell.
''It had been in the engine block.''

Last summer, Metro seized just more than $1.4 million worth of cocaine after
it was shipped through the mail and discovered in potato cans.

Rodney Jerome Smith, of 3219 Crowe Drive in Nashville, was arrested in the
case and was indicted in July on federal charges of possession with intent
to distribute six kilograms of cocaine, according to federal court records.

Police were tipped off about the drug shipment, and when Smith picked up the
package, police got a search warrant, the detective recalled.

''When we opened the package, we didn't see any drugs. Just four potato
cans,'' Burchwell said. ''They had been re-sealed just like the factory
would. We executed a search warrant on the house, and we found more empty
metal cans like the ones in the package along with kilo wrappers. . So he
had (hidden drugs in food cans) successfully before.''

Detective John Edwards of the Wilson County Sheriff's Department remembers a
recent bust where marijuana was mixed in with dog food in a 50-pound bag. He
also remembers another arrest, of a man who had stored marijuana mixed with
dog food in a Rubbermaid container.

The ruses get much more elaborate for high-level drug pushers.

''There is a whole industry dedicated to hiding drugs,'' said Greg Bunch, a
sergeant with Sumner County's Drug Task Force.

Bunch said his agency made a cocaine arrest last year of a Goodlettsville
man who had a special wall in a laundry room that would open up when
slightly pushed, similar to a radio button popping out.

Behind the wall was an area where guns and cocaine regularly were stored and
hidden.

Bunch didn't elaborate further on the case because he said it is connected
to an ongoing federal investigation.

''It was impressive,'' Bunch said.

''This arrest, we got the cocaine at the door, but we had information he
might have a hidden compartment, and when we opened it, we found guns. It
was where he had stored cocaine before. You see floor compartments, window
seals. Some of it is done very well,'' Bunch said.

Furniture and clothes also can be made with hidden compartments that drug
dealers use, Bunch said.

Major furniture makers often can custom-install hidden compartments for
people requesting them, ''often for legitimate purposes,'' he said.

Bunch said periodicals popular in the drug culture have classified
advertisements selling furniture, clothes and other items with hidden
compartments.

''It's amazing to see where folks conceal drugs and how neat they are and
how they can seal it back up,'' Lebanon Police Detective Tommy Maggart said.

Dealers trying to conceal drugs from sight also try to mask the smell from
police and dogs trained to sniff out narcotics. Police say detergents, soap
powder, laundry dryer sheets and coffee grounds are common ways to mask the
smell.

''Because marijuana has a strong, distinctive odor and dealers have to move
it in large quantities to make money, masking agents are very common,'' Ashe
said.

''Hopefully, you have a good drug dog, and some are very good. It might be
impossible to stop a car and know to take a muffler apart.

''But there aren't enough dogs and not enough manpower,'' Ashe said.

Burchwell calls Nashville a hub for drugs, one reason being the
interconnection of so many interstates here.

He said in 2002, the Metro Vice Division doubled its seizures in drugs, drug
money and arrests related to narcotics over its previous records in those
categories and in 2003 exceeded that.

''It tells me drug availability and the amounts of drugs have increased,''
Burchwell said.