Likely the answer to the prayers of one very bored sales representative, an Ohio-based Ford dealership was issued a batch of Mexican-built Fusions sedans with roughly $1 million of marijuana hidden inside. The vehicles were assembled in Hermosillo, Sonora, Mexico and shipped by rail into a CSX yard in Lordstown before making their way to a Youngstown Ford dealer.
According to the local police department, the dealership gradually discovered the marijuana between July 7th and July 11th — packaged in half-moon containers covertly stored in the spare-tire compartment under the trunk’s lining. Since it’s unlikely this is a bold new promotional strategy on the part of Ford, authorities are currently trying to uncover who was supposed to take delivery of the drugs before they arrived at the dealer lot.
“Clearly, something went wrong,” Silverio Balzano, the agent in charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration’s Youngstown office, told CNN. “Generally speaking, they could take it off anywhere else along the way.”
The packages, which resembled a 32 pound half-wheel of cheese, have cropped up before. “This is the first time I’ve seen it locally,” Balzano explained, but identical seizures were made earlier this year in Minnesota and the Phoenix.
In March, authorities in Dilworth, Minnesota also discovered drugs packed into Fusions shipped from Mexico. Seven vehicles were found to have similarly concealed packages of marijuana after the police department directed dealers to carefully inspect any new product shipped to them by rail.
At the time, the FBI estimated that over 1,000 pounds of weed had been captured by local agencies — and all of it hidden in the back of Ford’s conservative midsize sedan. One vehicle was even sold with the drugs still in the trunk.
“We’re aware of the situation and are taking it very seriously,” a Ford Motor Company spokesman said on Saturday. “We are working with the FBI and Customs on an extensive investigation. We have confirmed that this is not happening at our plant or at our internal shipping yards.”
CSX Transportation, Ford said, has specified it is cooperating with authorities by “providing all the support [it] can to the agencies who are investigating this serious crime and will continue to do so.”
This goes without saying but, if you’ve purchased a new Ford Fusion within the last few months, it might be worth your while to check the trunk for an extremely dope surprise.
[Image: Ford Motor Company]
This article is 89 days late! :)
No, this is a new story – it’s just that this time it was in Ohio, not Minnesota, like the previous story.
July 17th – 88 days = _______
(My math was off by one, I should have said 88, not 89.)
This is a DIFFERENT STORY, JIM.
^^^ sigh
I bet you guys are probably a lot of fun at parties.
I hope the druggies don’t get pissed off and chase the car’s new owner expecting to get their dope back.
-Nate
Remembering the previous stories about the Fusions in Minnesota, it makes me wonder about what the smugglers’ ultimate plans were, because you *know* they wouldn’t pack the weed in the cars without an expectation of retrieving it later.
So, that begs the question – did they plan on waiting, and then getting the weed once it arrived on the dealers’ lots? The window stickers on the cars would indicate what dealer ordered them, and the VIN, so it would be easy enough to take a cellphone picture of the sticker, and then later look up the address of the dealer, and walk onto the lot, or employ someone that works at the dealer, to recover the dope.
Criminals aren’t the smartest group, but yeah… what was the pickup plan? Lots of test drives? Truck drivers unloading roadside?
I’m thinking they planned for one of their guys to be working on the inside at the dealership. Gutsy plan with a few holes in it but not bad either… What are the chances they packed fifty different cars going to ten different dealers? These ones (and the ones in MN and PHX) were found but do you think any got through that we don’t know about?
(Edit feature is gone)
I was going to add that the busts were probably from a business rival calling in a tip.
I would think that they would plan to remove it at the rail yards and to have an inside person there. If it was an inside person at the dealer that would mean a lot of inside people and more care as to which cars it went into. On the other hand going to the dealer gets it direct to that city. On the other hand they could have just planned on finding the cars at the dealers and just breaking into them when the dealership was closed.
Since this isn’t the first time that it has been found, and the last reported incident was about 3 months ago my bet is that there were a number of shipments that did make it through.
After the first batch I would think that Ford would alert the dealers to check their Fusions or have them checked at the rail yard while they await the truck ride to the dealership. Fact is one of the previous cases was when an employee found it at the rail yard.
To me that screams the rail yard is the point and that particular employee found what he was looking for, got caught, made up some excuse as to why he was looking in the spare tire well, and then called the police with his “find”.
I hadn’t thought about that guy at the rail yard that way… too funny!
I was thinking along those lines as well. I don’t think the cars have their window stickers attached until later, so they may not know what cars are going where, which was why the weed was found in 50 cars going to 10 dealerships.
I wonder how much isn’t getting caught by the authorities. In other words, the FBI found $1M of dope this time, but has $100M actually made it through to the buyer?
Well…in my case absolutely none of it made it through to me when I bought my Hermosillo-manufactured Fusion from a dealer in Ohio.
Gee, President Trump was right after all wasn’t he?
That creating American jobs by growing weed locally is a good thing?
Don’t forget the spinoff jobs too- in retail, advertising, supplies, etc.
NAFTA in action.
Hehe… let the free market decide!
But it was for medicinal purposes – its a well known fact that Fusion drivers suffer from glaucoma.
Yeah, medicinal. Without it I could go even, uh, blinder.
Tell me again why legalizing marijuana is such an awful idea?
How else do you expect our pharmaceutical companies to make money if the most effective and natural pain killer, cancer drug, that has numerous other uses (and some non-medical) is legalized. Pharmaceutical co’s will do everything in their power to keep it illegal on a national level.
Fact is legalization is a very good idea and the benefits are massive and numerous. In my state roughly 1/3 of the retail price is the state Canabis and sales tax. The bigger benefit is that it is no longer grown in neighborhoods across the state. While many assume it isn’t going to happen in their neighborhoods in the time just after legalization I viewed numerous homes that had been grow operations. My guess is the people who were run out of business didn’t take the time to repair all their modifications and cover their tracks since they weren’t planning on setting up operations some place else since the profit had went away. Sure many were in more isolated areas I found many in nicer neighborhoods and one just a could of blocks from the High School my kids went to and not that far from an elementary school. You also no longer have deals going down in the local 7-11/Safeway/McDonalds/park.
The federal gov’t is not going to be able to ignore the amount of tax revenue the states are receiving and will want a piece of that pie before too long.
Marijuana helps people be comfortable with situations they shouldn’t be comfortable with. It ruins people’s motivation by taking away the stress that should be driving them to solve their problems. If you legalize, you better be prepared to deal with homelessness, kids who aren’t being parented, etc. I think it should be legalized, but we need to have open eyes about the consequences.
I think that stuff’s gonna happen whether weed is legal or not.
The same reason for most of our bad ideas. It’s to protect “the children”.
They certainly understand the concept of universal joints.
Much better than cash on the hood. Now Chevy is going to have to step it up. Perhaps 8balls for the Malibu.
Should have put “lucky” in quotes, as I’m sure the authorities damaged the vehicles searching them for more contraband, and perhaps even impounded them indefinitely.