She had 7 pounds of meth in an accordion and was staying in Tacoma, feds say

A woman staying at a motel just off South Hosmer Street had seven pounds of methamphetamine stashed in an accordion when federal agents and Tacoma police arrested her Tuesday, Pierce County prosecutors allege.

The 30-year-old woman from Earlimart, California, was arraigned Wednesday in Superior Court on one count of unlawful possession of a controlled substance with intent to deliver. Bail was set at $100,000.

According to charging documents:

A U.S. Department of Homeland Security special agent got a tip from an informant that a woman had driven from California to Tacoma with a significant amount of meth and that she was staying at a motel that shares a parking lot with a chain diner.

The agent was able to deduce it was a motel in the 1800 block of South 76th Street in Tacoma, a venue often used by drug smugglers moving from California and Arizona to stash their couriers.

About 8:30 a.m. Tuesday, the agent drove through the parking lot of the motel and found a brown SUV with California license plates. Homeland Security and Tacoma police began surveillance on the vehicle.

About 40 minutes later, a Tacoma police officer watched a woman leave her room and get in the SUV. A federal agent then watched her drive to a nearby grocery store. She parked for 10 minutes without leaving the vehicle and then went back to the motel.

She went to her room and came back with a bunch of her belongings, loading them into the SUV. She then backed the SUV closer to her room and made a second trip, struggling to carry an accordion she partially covered with clothing.

She drove to the grocery store parking lot, where she cruised around, seemingly looking for someone's vehicle. She parked once but moved shortly afterward, continuing to wend through the lot despite an abundance of empty parking spots.

She eventually parked in a corner of the lot next to a silver Jeep and got climbed into the back passenger seat of her SUV. The passenger in the Jeep got into the back seat of the woman's SUV. When he got out of the SUV and went back to his vehicle, the woman got back into the driver's seat.

Agents and police moved in, ordering the woman from her vehicle. She consented to them searching the SUV for drugs.

A police drug dog searched the vehicle, alerting agents to the accordion. Inside was 7.25 pounds of meth in seven vacuum-sealed packages. Street value of the meth was put at about $36,000.

This story was originally published May 31, 2018 at 3:17 PM with the headline "She had 7 pounds of meth in an accordion and was staying in Tacoma, feds say."