Drug enforcement officers pulled over an RV in Madison County, Illinois, in May for changing lanes without signaling and in the course of questioning the driver and the following search of the RV discovered $510,910 in cash.
Last week, federal authorities filed a forfeiture suit for the more than half a million dollars confiscated from Patrick N. Barber from Sedona, Arizona, claiming the money was tied to dealing marijuana, reported BND.com News.
Barber told Brantley he was a musician and had been recording an album in Nashville, Tennessee, for the past few weeks. Barber said he was on his way back to Sedona.
Back at his patrol car, Brantley ran a search on Barber and learned that he had a criminal history, including a prostitution charge in Los Angeles from 1973. That, in addition to Barber avoiding his questions as well as inconsistencies in his narrative, led him to be even more suspicious of Barber.
The officer wrote that once Barber rolled down the window it smelled as if Barber had just sprayed cologne. Officers said they “have seen this tactic used before when they have seized drugs and/or currency from the subject by using it as a masking agent.”
A K9 officer from the Troy Police Department arrived and positively signaled the presence of drugs in the RV. The three DEA officers searched the living quarters of the RV and found a box inside with multiple vacuum-sealed packages of U.S. currency wrapped in aluminum foil and other bundles in the RV’s freezer.
In a search of the RV later that day at the Pontoon Beach Police Department, officers said they found a well-defined drug ledger in a box from the RV. Read more.
