SALT LAKE CITY — A handful of drug runners have run into a dead end in Utah in the first half of October.
During the past two weeks, state troopers have made a record-breaking meth bust and seized plenty of opioids and marijuana too. The Utah Highway Patrol said the drugs were headed for Utah neighborhoods and other communities across the country.
"It seems to pick up this time of year for one reason or another," said Sgt. Rob Nixon, who supervises a UHP K-9 team. "I know our troopers are out in force right now. We've been working hard up on the freeways."
When they stop more cars for routine traffic violations, they catch more criminals and find more drugs, Nixon said.
"It does seem to ebb and flow," he said. "But it's an epidemic."
That's why Nixon hunts for criminals and drugs with his K-9 every day on the interstate.
"We feel it absolutely destroys our communities," he said.
Last week, troopers made a record-breaking 230-pound seizure of methamphetamine on a traffic stop near Springville. Estimated street value: $15 million. Add to that 10 separate narcotics seizures over the past week that netted 21 more pounds of meth, 165 pounds of marijuana,1 ounce of cocaine, more than 1,000 alprazolam pills (used for anxiety disorders), more than 1,000 oxycodone pills, and three handguns.
The UHP made five of those seizures on I-15, four on I-80 and one on I-70. Seven of the 10 motorists were speeding, according to the UHP.
"They're out stopping vehicles and paying attention to the indicators of criminal activity and the difference between an innocent motorist and somebody who is involved in any type of criminal activity," Nixon said.
Despite big seizures, the work never ends.
"We feel like our guys are very good at what they do. But we are also not so naive to think we get it all," he said.
Each of those cases is being investigated by the Department of Public Safety's State Bureau of Investigation.
Email: jboal@deseretnews.com