119 Pounds in the Back: Traffic Stop on Hwy 212 Ends in Felony Drug Bust

A routine speed stop turned into a heavyweight drug arrest last week when a Wyoming Highway Patrol trooper pulled over a Kansas City man on Highway 212 and found nearly 120 pounds of marijuana stuffed into duffel bags, News Letter Journal reports.

Just after 7 a.m. on Oct. 21, the trooper clocked a speeding vehicle and walked up to a scene that didn’t smell right — literally. In plain view: several large duffel bags piled in the rear cargo area and a can of air freshener on the front seat.

The driver, Wilbur Dale Mann of Kansas City, Missouri, told the trooper he was heading home from Seattle after visiting a friend and said the car had been rented by his boss. But the paperwork he handed over didn’t match the vehicle or any rental agreement, and his story kept shifting, according to the trooper’s report — enough to raise suspicions of drug smuggling.

Mann refused consent to search, saying the bags were probably his boss’s clothes and he couldn’t authorize opening them. The trooper then ran a K-9 sniff around the vehicle; the dog allegedly alerted twice, at the rear and again by a rear door.

Inside the duffels, officers say they found vacuum-sealed packages of suspected marijuana. At the WHP office, the haul weighed in at 119 pounds and tested positive for marijuana.

Mann is now facing felony charges: possession of a controlled substance with intent to deliver, and possession of a controlled substance.