Van hauling 900 pounds of pot arrives to pick up woman at NC casino
Murphey NC Dec 15 2021
What began as a domestic violence call ended in a massive drug bust, when Cherokee tribal police officers realized the victim’s ride home was a van loaded with marijuana, according to the Eastern Band of Cherokee Police Department.
The pot has an estimated street value of $3 million, the department said in a news release.
It happened Dec. 9 outside the Harrah’s Valley River Casino in Murphy, North Carolina, a gambling establishment owned by the Eastern Band of Cherokee, police said.
Murphy is about 225 miles west of uptown Charlotte.
The initial dispute involved a male and female, and resulted in police charging Brandon Thomas Jones, 27, of Ten Mile, Tennessee, “with assault on a female, possession of methamphetamine and paraphernalia,” police said.
A U-Haul later arrived at the casino to give the female a ride, and investigators grew suspicious when its license plate appeared to have been issued by the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, the release said. “After a brief conversation, the driver gave consent to search the vehicle,” police said. “
Additional officers arrived on scene to assist with the search, where they located multiple loaded syringes, two firearms and over 900 pounds of processed marijuana.”
Daniel Jerry Wiggins, 28, of Ten Mile, Tennessee, was identified as the driver. He has been “charged with trafficking a controlled substance, and displaying a fictitious tag,” police said. The arrest comes about four months after Eastern Band of Cherokee passed an ordinance “entering the world of medical cannabis,” with strict guidelines for regulation and sale of the drug, according to the Cherokee One Feather, a news outlet that covers the tribe.
Under the law, “enrolled members should not be prohibited from responsibly accessing, possessing, and using small amounts of marijuana for medicinal and health reasons.” The law also called for creation of a cannabis advisory commission and a cannabis control board.
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