22.5 Pounds of Meth found during Traffic Stop on I-80

Jose Vasquez-Rios (Courtesy of Lancaster County Sheriff’s Office)

LINCOLN -(KFOR July 17)- A routine traffic stop just west of Lincoln on I-80 on Tuesday morning (July 16th), led to Lancaster County Sheriff’s Deputies making a huge drug bust, finding over 20 pounds of meth in a hidden compartment on a vehicle.

Lancaster County Sheriff Terry Wagner said a deputy pulled over a car traveling east near mile marker 396, just west of the Highway 77 interchange, when the Deputy witnessed the vehicle following another vehicle too closely.

The deputy, who had a K-9 with him, noticed that the area around the windshield wipers look wrong, as if it had been altered. When the dog alerted to the presence of drugs in the vehicle, the Deputy investigated the altered area and found a hidden compartment. Inside the compartment was 22.5 pounds of methamphetamine.

More than 22 pounds of meth inside a makeshift compartment of a car pulled over Tuesday, July 16, 2019 along Interstate 80 in west Lincoln. (Courtesy of Lancaster County Sheriff’s Office)

The driver of the vehicle, 41-year-old Jose Vazquez-Rios of Orange, CA, was taken into custody for possession of methamphetamine with intent to deliver. The Lancaster County Sheriff’s Department isn’t yet releasing where the meth was being delivered to.