44 Pounds Of Coke Found In Traffic Stop – News Story – KPTV Portland
Wow! Dude almost made it home to Clackamas. What, like within twenty miles or so?
Looks like the I-5 corridor is still a major drug pipeline.
This story brought back memories for me. Between 1987-1989, while Rooster, Shorty, Gesner, Walker, etc. were doing their thing down in Salem, I was up in Portland slingin cocaine at this level. Most of the time the columbians would bring 20-30 kilos into town and hang out in an hotel. My Cuban partner would purchase anywhere from 10-20 kilos at $14,000 per, and get an additional 5-10 kilos on a front to sell while the columbians hung out at the hotel for a few days waiting to collect on what they fronted.
The coke scene was much different than the meth scene. I always told myself I would never deal meth because of the scandalous MF’ers you’d havta deal with. Should’ve listened to myself because it was meth I was dealing when I eventually fell and landed my ass in the joint.
I did make a couple of trips to LA like this guy probably did. We would get a motel room and wait for a couple of dudes to show up. Once they arrived we exchanged car keys and they left. The next morning they came back, and once again we exchanged car keys.
When we got back to Portland we would drive the car to my body shop where I’d use an air chisel to cut into the secret compartment where the cocaine was hidden. They would actually weld the secret compartment shut, slap bondo all around it to make it appear flush with the undercarriage, and spray heavy undercoating all over it. Then they would mix up some mud with dirt and water and splash that all over the new undercoating. Pretty slick really.
No one I ever knew got caught with the shit, although there were a couple of times our people got pulled over and large amounts of cash were found.
My Cuban friend eventually got busted by Burnell on the cops TV show not long after the Francke murder. A woman ratted him out and set him up. Women were always his weakness. I had quit dealing and moved to San Francisco when I just happened to catch the episode.
Burnell came close to nabbing me once on Cops as well. There was an episode where this bitch on a Tri-Met bus gets nabbed with a measely 20 sack at 82nd and Division. Burnell and crew offer to let her off if she gives up someone. She decides to pick my Cuban friend, and it just so happened I had his old pager which is the number she called. When I called her back I told her I’d have our mutual friend call her. The number I had called her back at was the cop shop it turned out. Good thing I always used pay phones those days. When I saw the episode on TV they actually showed her taking my phone call and you could hear both our voices.
So, I get a callback from my dude who asks me to deliver the 1/4 pound to her. I’m like, huh? This bitch never buys that much. What up? Told him I didn’t like the way it felt and he ended up getting his cousin to make the run.
Still to this day I’m amazed at how close I came to being the guy Burnell and his crew swarmed in on.
I wonder if you can purchase those old episodes of Cops. If anyone knows, let me know.
Free Frank Gable 