$1M In Pot Stashed In Ford Fusions Shipped To Ohio From Mexico

LORDSTOWN, OH — More than a dozen Ford Fusion subcompact cars manufactured in Mexico arrived at a Lordstown, Ohio, plant fully loaded — not with extra bells and whistles, but with about $1 million worth of marijuana stashed in the spare tire wells in the trunks. The weed was discovered when the vehicles were delivered to dealerships, according to media reports.

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration is investigating how the pot, which was compressed into half-moon shapes, ended up in the vehicles and was smuggled into the United States. Ford Motor Co., which is based in Dearborn, Michigan, said the drugs weren’t put in the cars at its production plant or internal shipping yards in Hermosillo, Sonora, Mexico. (For more local news, click here to sign up for real-time news alerts and newsletters from Cleveland Patch, or click here to find your local Ohio Patch. Also, if you have an iPhone, click here to get the free Patch iPhone app.)

Investigators figure someone was supposed to retrieve the pot from the Ford Fusions before they arrived at the CSX yard in Lordstown, said Silverio Balzano, who heads the DEA’s Youngstown, Ohio, office, on CNN. They’re also not sure at what point during shipment the marijuana was planted in the vehicles.

“Clearly, something went wrong,” Balzano said. “Generally speaking, they could take it off anywhere else along the way.”

Authorities were alerted to the smuggling operation after pot was found in a car at a Ford dealership in Youngstown some time between July 7-11. In all, authorities found marijuana in 15 cars in four Ohio counties and one location in Pennsylvania, according to the CNN report.

This isn’t the first time weed has been smuggled into the United States in imported vehicles. In March, authorities in Dilworth, Minnesota, found several packages of marijuana hidden in wheel wells after BNSF Railroad police directed its workers there to make routine inspections of new vehicle shipments. The 217 pounds of marijuana had been broken into 14 packages that had a combined street value of $272,000.

Authorities also found pot in Ford Fusion vehicles in Arizona in May.

Ford is cooperating with the investigation.

(AP Photo/Keith Srakocic, File)