Federal agents arrested a Pennsylvania man Wednesday after finding a half kilogram of cocaine in his car, according to police and court documents.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office charged Jeremiah Hughes-Petty with possession of cocaine with the intent to distribute. He was scheduled to make an appearance in U.S. District Court in Portland.
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Authorities were investigating reports that Hughes-Petty was bringing several hundreds grams of cocaine to Portland every 10 days, according to a court affidavit prepared by Paul Wolf, special agent with the federal Drug Enforcement Administration.
Agents spotted Hughes-Petty on Wednesday driving a rented gray Chevrolet Malibu with Maryland license plates. He got into the car carrying a silver-colored shopping bag and drove to a house on Hastings Street in the Rosemont neighborhood of Portland at 7 p.m.
Police detained him and summoned South Portland’s drug-sniffing dog Trigger and his handler, Officer Kevin Theriault. Trigger indicated there were drugs inside the car, the affidavit said.
The shopping bag contained four bags of white powder containing 468 grams of cocaine. A half kilo of cocaine costs between $15,000 and $20,000 in Maine, though if sold to individual users would net more than $50,000, local police said. The shopping bag also contained a bag of marijuana, a digital scale and powder used to dilute cocaine.
