TRAINING PAYS OFF IN DRUG SEIZURES

LEXINGTON, N.C.--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 five 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 each other's jurisdictions in recent weeks to search for drugs and large
amounts of cash hidden in vehicles.

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 don't like to give specifics about the things they look
for, fearing that would provide helpful information to drug traffickers.

The two men arrested Friday, Vermil Vargas, 31, and Misael Chavez
Rodriguez, 26, were in a Dodge Stratus that had 5 kilograms of cocaine
hidden inside a second battery, investigators said. 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, the investigators said.

The men, who had drivers' licenses with Greensboro and Asheboro addresses,
were coming from Atlanta. They were being held at Davidson County Jail with
bail set at $1 million each.