Three arrested, $160,000 worth of methamphetamine pills seized in SC traffic stop

A traffic stop on Interstate 95 turned up 32 bags of methamphetamine pills, several bags of marijuana and a tube of what appeared to be liquid PCP, according to the Sumter County Sheriff’s Office.

On Monday, the deputies from the Sumter County Sheriff’s Office stopped a rental car being driven by Alexis Daniel Mendez.

Lieutenant Jason Tassone, who pulled over the car, said that the 2022 Toyota 4 Runner was speeding and braked suddenly before he pulled it over for following too closely to the vehicle ahead of it.

When he approached the vehicle, Tassone said that he smelled marijuana. Marijuana residue was in “plain view” inside of the car, according to a statement from the sheriff’s department.

A search of the car, which was was rented in New York and was scheduled to be returned in Miami, found the bags of meth and other drugs wrapped in clothing, the statement said.

The methamphetamine pills are estimated to have a street value of $160,000, according to the sheriff’s office.

Sumter Sheriff Anthony Dennis said that he was committed to “keeping these dangerous drugs off the street.”

Officers also arrested the two passengers, Ezequiel Then-Tejada and Luilly Eugenio Angeles Acosta.

Mendez, Then-Tejada and Acosta have been charged with possession of schedule I drugs and trafficking in meth, 400 grams or more.

All three received a $110,000 bond. Then-Tejada was released after paying bond, while Mendez and Acosta remained at the Sumter-Lee Regional Detention Center as of Saturday afternoon.

The arrest came just days before the South Carolina Attorney General’s Office unsealed a 43-person indictment targeting an Upstate meth-trafficking operation. In a press conference Thursday, Attorney General Alan Wilson described how convicted drug traffickers from inside South Carolina prisons ran “command and control” for a meth trafficking operation.

Using cellphones smuggled into prison, they coordinated with accomplices, including alleged members of Mexican cartels, to bring methamphetamine from Atlanta into the Upstate via interstate highways, Wilson said.

“That’s not to say that it isn’t happening in other areas of our state,” Wilson said. “There certainly are other veins and arteries that run through our state that support that kind of illicit activity.”