14 POUNDS OF METH SEIZED IN MELISSA

MELISSA -- Fourteen pounds of methamphetamine were taken out of circulation
Wednesday night in what is perhaps the largest meth seizure in Collin
County's history, especially when the street value is factored it, making
it a $1.2-million drug raid, authorities report. Melissa Police
Investigator Phillip Pannel said Officers Chris Waycaster and Doug Dalton
were workin g traffic detail on U.S. Highway 75 when they saw a silver Ford
Winstar van make a driving violation as it went north. They pulled in
behind and made a traffic stop.

The driver, an Arkansas man, 32, had no driver's license, Pannel said, so
they put him under arrest on that charge. While inventorying the van, they
smelled car paint and then located a hidden compartment added to the van.
Inside that compartment were 14 one-pound bags of uncut meth.

Pannel said they learned it came from the Dallas area, but doesn't yet know
if it was manufactured there or farther south and brought to Dallas.

"It was powder meth, and had not been cut. It was 100 percent pure," Pannel
said.

The Melissa PD will send a sample of the product to a forensics lab for
further testing and will also begin civil forfeiture procedures to obtain
the van and the $500 cash in the suspect's possession. Pannel said there
were no weapons and that the suspect has no previous criminal history. The
officers jailed the suspect on a first-degree felony charge of manufacture
or delivery of controlled substance (meth) over 400 grams, plus several
other charges.

Pannel said he knew for sure it was the largest drug seizure that Melissa
PD had ever made.