{"id":35700,"date":"2015-04-24T12:18:41","date_gmt":"2015-04-24T16:18:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/?p=35700"},"modified":"2015-04-24T12:18:41","modified_gmt":"2015-04-24T16:18:41","slug":"lcso-bust-2-in-cocaine-ring","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/2015\/04\/lcso-bust-2-in-cocaine-ring\/","title":{"rendered":"LCSO Bust 2 in Cocaine Ring"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_35701\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-35701\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-35701 \" title=\"Photo courtesy of LCSO\" src=\"http:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/Photo-courtesy-of-LCSO-300x236.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"236\" srcset=\"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/Photo-courtesy-of-LCSO-300x236.jpg 300w, https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/Photo-courtesy-of-LCSO.jpg 806w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-35701\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo courtesy of LCSO<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The large police activity in a Cape Coral and Lehigh Acres neighborhoods early Friday morning was due to an investigation into a large-scale cocaine distribution ring stemming from Puerto Rico to Lee County, Lee County Sheriff authorities say.<\/p>\n<p>Detectives say the investigation began when a routine K9 sniff by interdiction dogs identified a shipment of drugs destined for Cape Coral and Lehigh Acres.<\/p>\n<p>U.S. Postal Inspectors were able to secure search warrants for the parcels and a coordinated operation involving the U.S. Postal Service, Lee County Sheriff&#8217;s Office and Department of Homeland Security led to the identification of a potential suspect.<\/p>\n<p>Joint search warrants were served at two separate residences;\u00a0623 SW 23rd Terrace, Cape Coral\u00a0and\u00a02804 20th Street SW, Lehigh Acres.<\/p>\n<p>As a result of these search warrants, investigators say more than eleven 11 pounds of powder cocaine was seized with a conservative street value of $250,000.<\/p>\n<p><!--more-->LCSO Detectives say a handgun was also recovered at the Cape Coral residence along with evidence of drug packaging, weighing and distribution. Nearly $14,500 in drug proceeds was also seized for forfeiture.<\/p>\n<p>Authorities say Francisco Manuel Velez Melendez of 623 SW 23rd Terrace, Cape Coral, was importing the cocaine from Puerto Rico for distribution throughout Lee County.<\/p>\n<p>Additionally, another suspect, Alfredo Perez of 2804 SW 40th Street, Lehigh Acres, was assisting Melendez in receiving cocaine from Puerto Rico at the Lehigh Acres address, LCSO investigators say.<\/p>\n<p>Melendez is charged with trafficking in Cocaine over 200 grams; Possession of a Firearm by a convicted felon and Possession of drug paraphernalia.<\/p>\n<p>Perez is charged with trafficking in Cocaine over 500 grams.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The large police activity in a Cape Coral and Lehigh Acres neighborhoods early Friday morning was due to an investigation into a large-scale cocaine distribution ring stemming from Puerto Rico&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":35701,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57,32],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35700"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35700"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35700\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35701"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35700"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35700"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35700"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}