{"id":263735,"date":"2026-08-12T05:40:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-12T05:40:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/263735\/"},"modified":"2026-08-12T05:40:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-12T05:40:11","slug":"180-pounds-of-cocaine-seized-in-large-scale-drug-trafficking-investigation-in-pittsburgh-area","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/263735\/","title":{"rendered":"180 pounds of cocaine seized in large-scale drug trafficking investigation in Pittsburgh area"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Two men are facing charges after authorities said they seized about 180 pounds of cocaine as part of a large-scale drug trafficking investigation in the Pittsburgh area.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Darnell Rhinehart and Lamar Lewis were arrested on drug and firearms charges after FBI Pittsburgh said law enforcement seized 80 kilograms of cocaine on Monday night.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The FBI said investigators watched Rhinehart on video surveillance loading multiple brown cardboard boxes from a tractor-trailer into the bed of his vehicle on Monday afternoon, arriving and leaving within just two minutes.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Authorities said they tracked Rhinehart to a Pittsburgh bar several hours later and watched as Lewis parked his pickup truck near Rhinehart&#8217;s vehicle and took four brown cardboard boxes. Lewis then placed a heavy bag in Rhinehart&#8217;s vehicle before driving away, the FBI said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>      <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/kdka-cocaine-seizure.png#.png\" alt=\"kdka-cocaine-seizure.png \" height=\"349\" width=\"620\" class=\" lazyload\"  loading=\"lazy\"\/><\/p>\n<p>                  Two men are facing charges after authorities said they seized about 180 pounds of cocaine as part of a large-scale drug trafficking investigation in the Pittsburgh area.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>                (Photo: FBI Pittsburgh)<\/p>\n<p>A traffic stop on Lewis&#8217; vehicle turned up 50 kilograms of cocaine as well as a loaded 9mm semi-automatic pistol that was later confirmed as stolen, investigators said.<\/p>\n<p>Authorities continued trailing Rhinehart, who was later seen picking up a red backpack from a home before driving to another Pittsburgh bar. He walked into the bar with the bag and left without it, the FBI said, and when authorities arrested Rhinehart, they found 5 kilograms of cocaine in the backpack.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Several more searches at locations associated with Rhinehart turned up 35 more kilograms of cocaine in cardboard boxes as well as &#8220;large sums&#8221; of cash and a shotgun, the FBI said. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Seizing 80 kilos of cocaine means taking away profits and the power that money can buy right out of the hands of international criminal organizations,&#8221; FBI Pittsburgh Special Agent in Charge Richard Evanchec said in a news release. &#8220;Shipments like this represent money flowing right back to groups that rule through violence and fear. Cocaine trafficking is not a victimless crime, and the FBI and our partners will use every tool at our disposal to keep ridding our communities of these deadly narcotics.&#8221; \u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\n          More from CBS News\n        <\/p>\n<p class=\"content__tags__label\">In:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two men are facing charges after authorities said they seized about 180 pounds of cocaine as part of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":263736,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[10739,5876,3635,73,75,74],"class_list":["post-263735","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-cocaine","tag-drug-trafficking","tag-fbi","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263735","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=263735"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263735\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/263736"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=263735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=263735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=263735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}