DRUG PATROLS INTENSIFY

Davidson Deputies Implement New Tactics

LEXINGTON -- Just six weeks ago, some Davidson County sheriff's deputies
took classes to learn how to find and seize drugs and cash on the
interstate. Since then, the sheriff's office said it has seized about
$400,000 and eight vehicles.

The biggest drug seizure by the six-person drug-interdiction unit came
Friday afternoon, when deputies found 5 kilograms of cocaine hidden inside
a battery of a car that they stopped on Interstate 85. The cocaine has a
street value of about $1 million, deputies said.

"We're out here every day -- seven days a week," Sheriff Gerald Hege said.
"We've barely been out of school six weeks."

Deputies from Davidson, Iredell, Alamance and Sampson counties have worked
in one another's jurisdictions in recent weeks to search for drugs and
large amounts of cash hidden in vehicles.

Iredell deputies were with Davidson deputies Friday when they found the
cocaine.

Many of the drivers stopped on I-85 are pulled over for such actions as
changing lanes without using a turn signal, weaving from side to side or
having a cracked windshield.

Deputies such as Mark Vanzant of Davidson's drug-interdiction unit are
trained to identify indicators of drug trafficking. If there are enough
suspicious indicators at a traffic stop, deputies often run a dog around
the vehicle to find drugs or weapons. Deputies said they do not like to
give specifics about the things they look for, fearing that would provide
helpful information to drug traffickers.

"We just have to have indicators," Vanzant said. "If we see something
suspicious and we need the dog to confirm it, then we use the dog."

Deputies said that they don't assume anyone is a drug trafficker. "We don't
know who's dealing drugs or not," Vanzant said.

The two men arrested Friday were in a Dodge Stratus that had 5 kilograms of
cocaine hidden inside a second battery. There were marijuana seeds inside
the battery, too, and the drugs were covered in grease -- a technique
traffickers sometimes use in hopes that a dog will not smell the drugs,
investigators said.

Deputies arrested Vermil Vargas, 31, and Misael Chavez Rodriguez, 26,
according to the sheriff's office. The men, who had driver's licenses with
Greensboro and Asheboro addresses, were traveling from Atlanta.

Their charges include three counts each of trafficking in cocaine. They
were being held at Davidson County jail with bail set at $1 million each.

Sometimes there are no drugs in a vehicle, but thousands in cash. Last
month deputies seized $19,420 from hidden compartments in a Toyota Corolla
and the same day took $11,420 in cash from a 1995 Ford Thunderbird.

The sheriff's office notifies the Drug Enforcement Administration about the
seizures, and 20 percent of the money goes to the federal government.

Hege said the sheriff's office can use forfeiture money to buy anything
related to fighting drugs.

When deputies from one county are working in another, they split the
forfeiture money. And there's a bonus to drug interdiction, deputies say.
Their increased presence on I-85 has helped calm traffic and prevent
accidents, deputies said.