By Sarah Roebuck Police1
PAW PAW TOWNSHIP, Mich. — A trooper with the Michigan State Police made the largest fentanyl bust during a traffic stop in state history, and it was all caught on body-worn camera, WOODTV reports.
Back in March, a trooper on the west side of the state noticed a vehicle driving erratically and crossing the center line multiple times. The car also had a black frame blocking the license plate.
The trooper stopped the driver, identified as 25-year-old Brahajan Martinez-Garcia from Fresno County, California. After looking at his driver’s license, the body camera shows the trooper asking him to step out of the car. The trooper then took him inside her patrol vehicle due to the noisy highway.
“Sorry, you’re not under arrest,” the trooper is heard telling Martinez-Garcia. “I can’t hear out there. It’s loud. I don’t want to have to yell.”
“I’m a little nervous because never pulled over before, you know,” Martinez-Garcia told the trooper.
The trooper then asked Martinez-Garcia if he had anything illegal in his car, to which he replied “Nothing.”
Martinez-Garcia claimed he was driving from California in his mother’s car to pick up his wife and daughter in Michigan. But when the trooper asked if he had any bags in the car that didn’t belong to him, he told her he couldn’t understand her.
“It’s all your stuff in the vehicle?” she asked.
“No,” he replied.
The trooper called a translator. The translator said he heard a different story from Martinez-Garcia.
As her suspicion grew, the trooper told Martinez-Garcia she was going to search his car. She asked him if he wanted to stay in the cruiser or come outside while the search was taking place. Martinez-Garcia waited outside and consented to a body search.
During the start of the search, the trooper found hundreds of dollars in cash. As she dug through the back seat, she found a red bag that had a clear bag with drugs inside it.
The trooper didn’t know exactly what type of drug it was at the time, but she knew there was a lot.
“I got at least 4 kilos,” the trooper said.
The trooper did intercept 4 kilos worth of fentanyl. It’s the largest fentanyl bust resulting from a traffic stop in state history, Michigan State Police say.