Two cases with $195,000 of alleged drug money found in Barrington woods
By: News Staff
Email: news@abc6.com
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BARRINGTON, R. I. (WLNE) – The U.S. Federal Court is seeking to seize $195,000 of alleged drug money after two cases were found double padlocked in a section of woods in Barrington.
According to court documents obtained by ABC6 News, Barrington youths were playing in the woods on Wampanoag Trail back on October 15, 2016, when a waterproof case was discovered.
“The youths opened the case and took it back home,” the document stated, “one of the youths told a parent, who subsequently brought it to the Barrington Police.”
Authorities confirmed the unidentified parent counted the money, and officers as well as a local bank employee recounted; determining a total of $110,000.
“The police noted a strong odor of marijuana emanating from the currency,” the document read.
With a sum that large, Barrington Police officers instructed the youths to guide them to wear the case was initially found, and upon inspection of the area, discovered a second case.
The case “appeared to have been wedged into a tree, approximately five feet off the ground in an area thick with vines and surrounded by several thorn bushes.”
The Rhode Island State Police crime lab were granted authorization to open the second suitcase, where investigators found 42 bundles of cash wrapped with rubber bands; one bundle with a woman’s elastic hair band. The total of that case came to $85,000.
The document went on to say that a man who was believed to be living in a home near the wooded area where the suitcases were found was convicted back in June of 2012 for unlawful cultivation of a controlled substance in Foster, R.I.
The filing went on the say the man has criminal record in Connecticut, “including several convictions doe violating the controlled substance act and weapons violations.”
The man had a listed address on Central Pike in Scituate, where there were also signs of an indoor marijuana grow.
Electrical bills, bags of fertilizer, and empty boxes of light bulbs were pulled from the residence, further alleging a marijuana growing operation at the Scituate residence was being dismantled.
The investigation is ongoing at this time.
©WLNE-TV / ABC6 2017
