Nearly 180 pounds of drugs were seized Monday evening in the Pittsburgh area as part of a \u201clarge-scale drug trafficking investigation,\u201d FBI Pittsburgh announced.<\/p>\n
Pennsylvania State Police troopers, FBI Pittsburgh special agents and task force officers seized 80 kilograms of cocaine, according to the FBI. Large sums of cash and a shotgun were found as well.<\/p>\n
Two people were arrested in connection with the investigation: Darnell Rhinehart and Lamar Lewis. The FBI said they have been charged with possession with intent to distribute five kilograms or more of cocaine, as well as possession of a firearm and ammunition by a convicted felon.<\/p>\n
\u201cSeizing 80 kilos of cocaine means taking away profits and the power that money can buy right out of the hands of international criminal organizations. Shipments like this represent money flowing right back to groups that rule through violence and fear,\u201d said FBI Pittsburgh Special Agent in Charge Richard Evanchec. \u201cCocaine 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
The investigation involved multiple local, state and federal partner agencies, according to the FBI.<\/p>\n
On Monday afternoon, investigators tracked Rhinehart to an address and observed him meeting up with a tractor-trailer through video surveillance. Rhinehart then loaded \u201cmultiple brown cardboard boxes from the truck into the bed of his vehicle,\u201d the FBI said.<\/p>\n
Rhinehart arrived and departed the location within two minutes, according to video surveillance.<\/p>\n
Several hours later, special agents and troopers tracked Rhinehart to a Pittsburgh bar. The bar name was not disclosed by the FBI.<\/p>\n
Lewis arrived at the same bar and parked a pickup near Rhinehart\u2019s vehicle. Lewis then removed four cardboard boxes from Rhinehart\u2019s vehicle to his pickup, the FBI said.<\/p>\n
Before driving away, Lewis put \u201cwhat appeared to be a heavy bag\u201d into Rhinehart\u2019s vehicle.<\/p>\n
FBI Pittsburgh said a traffic stop was then executed on Lewis\u2019 vehicle later Monday evening, where investigators found 40 kilograms of cocaine in the cardboard boxes and a loaded 9mm semi-automatic pistol that was confirmed stolen.<\/p>\n
Physical surveillance of Rhinehart continued throughout Monday evening as well, according to the FBI, and he was seen picking up a red backpack at a residence before going to another Pittsburgh bar. The name of this bar is also unknown.<\/p>\n
Rhinehart walked into the bar with the bag and then left without it, the FBI said. He was then arrested.<\/p>\n
The bag was found to contain 5 kilograms of cocaine.<\/p>\n
The remaining 35 kilograms of the 80 total kilograms seized were discovered in cardboard boxes in a detached garage after investigators conducted searches at multiple locations associated with Rhinehart, the FBI said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nearly 180 pounds of drugs were seized Monday evening in the Pittsburgh area as part of a \u201clarge-scale…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":263965,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[73,75,74],"class_list":["post-263964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263964","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=263964"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263964\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/263965"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=263964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=263964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=263964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}