Cocaine suspects due in court today

Agent: New Yorkers had 3 kilos when stopped on I-81

By Sally Voth -- svoth@nvdaily.com

HARRISONBURG -- A pair of New Yorkers caught on Interstate 81 in Edinburg with a large amount of cocaine in their car are scheduled to appear today in U.S. District Court.
Yulissa Eusebio and Jose Augusto Ferreira-Flores are scheduled to appear before U.S. Magistrate Judge James G. Welsh in the early afternoon, according to online court records.

The pair were in a 2005 Nissan that was pulled over on northbound I-81 on Dec. 21, according to an affidavit filed by Drug Enforcement Administration Special Agent Houston Smith. The affidavit was in support of a criminal complaint against them for possession with the intent to distribute 500 grams or more of cocaine.

State Trooper Joseph Miller pulled the car over for speeding and a tinted window violation, the affidavit says. The driver, Eusebio, gave Miller a New York driver's license, but said the information on it was incorrect, and her license had been lost.

She told Miller someone she only knew as "Alexandria" owned the car, the affidavit says. It says Eusebio later told the trooper she'd lied about having lost her license, which turned out to be suspended.

Eusebio told Miller she and Ferreira-Flores had gone to visit friends in Texas, but didn't know the name of the city where they lived or other details, according to the affidavit.

It says Ferreira-Flores told Miller they were on their way back to the Bronx, N.Y., after visiting friends in Houston. He didn't have a license, but had a Dominican passport.

A drug dog alerted to the Nissan, which led to a search, the affidavit says, and that turned up a plastic cooler with three plastic bags each containing more than 1,000 grams of cocaine, or a total of about 3 kilograms.

Ferreira-Flores and Eusebio were brought to the Shenandoah County Sheriff's Office for questioning, the affidavit says. There, Ferreira-Flores said he didn't know about the cooler, and said he didn't know "specific names" of the friends he'd visited in Texas.

He told investigators he was paid $500 to go to Texas and drop off the borrowed car in a parking lot and pick it up later, the affidavit says. He said he could get information out of his phone, but when a DEA agent gave him the phone, Ferreira-Flores started deleting phone numbers and locations, it says.

He later asked to speak to investigators again, the affidavit says. Ferreira-Flores then said he knew about the cocaine, and that he was given $500 per kilo to take it from Houston to the Bronx.

"Ferreira-Flores refused to provide any additional details concerning the circumstances of the cocaine delivery or the people involved," the affidavit says.