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Law enforcement captures man towing truck with heroin

The criminal complaint said after agents stopped Rivers – an odor of marijuana led them to search the vehicle where a brown package was discovered. The package tested positive for heroin.

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Some in law enforcement call Interstate-95 Florida’s drug highway.

Agents were tracking a truck towing a car through Southeast Georgia per a federal criminal complaint.

The incident happened on I-95 in McIntosh County, Georgia. The driver, Ira Rivers, missed a weigh station just north of Brunswick – a means for a stop, according to the complaint.

“It’s a major artery and a drug corridor for years," First Coast News Crime and Safety Analyst Mark Baughman said. 

He spent years making busts with the Drug Enforcement Agency.

The criminal complaint said after agents stopped Rivers an odor of marijuana led them to search the vehicle where a brown package was discovered. The package tested positive for heroin.

Cash found on Rivers and in the car totaled more than $330,000. 

Baughman says teams up and down the highway system look for key things, like out of state plates and types of vehicles common among traffickers.

“They take a myriad of things and put it all together, and then they find a violation or see a violation and effect a traffic stop,” Baughman said.

In this case, only Rivers was found and arrested but two others have been linked to the case. In Baughman’s experience, he says traffickers may work in teams.

“The vehicle goes through the checkpoint but gets less attention because they’re focusing on something that’s working in tandem with it but doesn’t have any contraband in it," Baughman said, "so basically it’s a tactic by the bad guys to divert law enforcement.”

Baughman adds that agencies may even finish out the deal with a bigger picture in mind.

“Traffickers have an idea when that is going to arrive, so they try to do something called a controlled delivery with the real bad guys and ultimately disband an organization by one traffic stop,” Baughman said.

This case is working through the legal system in Georgia.

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