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Truck driver who searched how to smuggle drugs caught outside Las Vegas with 200 lbs. of cocaine, heroin: police
LAS VEGAS (KLAS) — A truck driver who searched the internet about how to smuggle drugs across the border faces charges after police arrested him outside Las Vegas with more than 200 pounds of cocaine and heroin, documents said.
On May 9, police patrolling Interstate 15 south of Las Vegas arrested Mark Delarge, 49, of Alberta, Canada, following a traffic stop.
A detective first stopped Delarge, who was driving a semitruck in Jean, for traveling an estimated 75 mph in a 55-mile-per-hour work zone, police said. The detective noticed Delarge, who said he was returning to Canada from California, was nervous 'because his hands were shaking,' documents said.
The detective called for a narcotics detector dog to search the truck, police said. The dog alerted police to 'odors of methamphetamine, heroin and cocaine.' Delarge then admitted there was cocaine in the vehicle,' documents said.
'Mark said that as he was traveling from Canada to Los Angeles, he had conducted an internet search for 'how to smuggle drugs across the border,'' police said. 'Mark began to go to different website[s] and eventually contact an individual on Facebook… who then agreed to have Mark pick up cocaine in the Riverside area and transport it back to Canada.'
Inside the truck, police located several boxes of cocaine and heroin weighing a combined 201 pounds, documents said.
A Clark County grand jury later voted to indict Delarge on four drug-trafficking-related charges, records said. During a grand jury return hearing, Clark County District Court Chief Judge Jerry Wiese set bail at $250,000.
Delarge has remained in custody since his initial arrest.
He was due to enter a formal plea in district court on June 16.
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