TIP LED TO LARGEST DRUG BUST IN COUNTY HISTORY

ASHEBORO - "We're starting the year off with a bang, aren't we?" Randolph
County Sheriff Litchard Hurley asked Thursday as he commented on the arrest
of five men and the seizure of a record $1.445 million in marijuana Tuesday
afternoon.

Tuesday's seizure of 1,445 pounds of marijuana by law enforcement officers
at 6739 N.C. 134, Asheboro, is more than double the previous record amount
confiscated in the county.

Hurley said the information which led to the arrests and seizure of the
marijuana came from a phone call to his office.

"We didn't have enough information for a warrant, so we just went to do a
'knock and talk,'" Hurley said. "When they started piling out of the
windows, we chased them down and rounded them up. The officers could see
through the windows. They didn't believe what they saw."

A search warrant was drawn up for the residence after officers spotted a
room full of marijuana through the windows.

Hurley said officers from the State Bureau of Investigation, Asheboro
Police Department and deputies of his department had discovered what Hurley
called a "stash house" - an out-of-the-way place rented by drug distributors.

According to Hurley, drugs are brought into an area by drivers who do not
know where they will make a delivery. They are often met in the parking lot
of a public place and then led to a stash house. The drugs are unloaded,
the drivers leave and the local distributors begin to repackage the drugs
into smaller bundles. After that, dealers from the area pick up their
bundled orders to break them down to street-sale sizes. Hurley said there
were probably other stash houses in Randolph, Alamance and Chatham counties
which serve drug dealers in this area.

"They have a pretty tight-knit ring working this whole area," Hurley said.
"Dealers have gotten smarter. They know if we find drugs at their house, we
can take their house and everything in it. If we catch them at a rented
place, they can say, 'That's not my place.' They are doing the same with
vehicles. They've figured out the system."

Randolph County vice detective Lt. T.L. James said Thursday the five men
arrested are the only suspects they have in connection with the seizure.
They were Jaimes Jaimes Sait, 40, 1130 Brooklyn Ave., Ramseur; Antonio
Nunez Hernandez, 19, Charlotte; Reyonaldo Hernandez Ochoa, 32, Atlanta,
Ga.; Israel Sanchez Pineda, 21, Gainsville, Ga.; and Arturo Arniz, 32, Mexico.

James said he was charging the men under the names they gave and was
awaiting information from fingerprint identification. All the men were
illegal aliens. According to James, if the men are convicted, they will
serve their time in a North Carolina prison and then be deported from the
country.

Hurley said he did not believe the home owner, Yang Sinou, was aware of
what was happening in the residence.

"A bust like this tells you something about what's coming in here," Hurley
said.

"Until our federal government stops this stuff from coming in over the
border, local and state government will have to continue to fight this
problem. There is no way in the world we can stop it here. We're going to
have to have help from the federal level. And you can quote me on that."