'Ice' found under floor of garage

Police seized $300,000 in high-grade methamphetamine Wednesday night from a Mexican drug-trafficking organization's stash house in east Carson City, they said.

During a search of a double-wide mobile home at 2741 Bunch Way, officers from the Tri-Net Drug Task Force, the Reno office of the Drug Enforcement Administration and members of Carson City's Office of Alternative Sentencing uncovered 61U2 pounds of crystal methamphetamine, also called "ice," buried beneath landscaping bricks in a garage floor. Authorities also seized a 1996 Nissan sedan and about $11, 200 cash.

"Ice," by federal standards, is 80 percent pure methamphetamine, said Lt. Scott Jackson of Tri-Net, a multi-jurisdictional task force of investigators from the state's Department of Public Safety and deputies from the sheriff's departments in Lyon, Douglas and Storey counties and Carson City.

"The trend is, the majority of this crystal is being manufactured in Mexico and Southern and Central California," Jackson said. "It appears they were transporting it here."

Jesus Edgar Ramirez, 32, was booked into the Carson City Jail on suspicion of felony trafficking in a controlled substance, possession of a controlled substance for sales, and misdemeanor possession of paraphernalia. He was being held on $500,000 bail.

He told police Ramirez had been in the area about three months and was living in the sparsely furnished home. He said there were some children's toys in the home, but he doesn't believe children lived there.

According to evidence found at the scene, Ramirez was not named as a tenant on the rental agreement.

For the past six months, local law enforcement agencies have been encountering higher-quality methamphetamine in its arrests, he said.

"This (ice) is a kind of a new trend in this area. The average street purity runs 35 percent so this is very high-quality, high-grade crystal methamphetamine. We think this bust will have a significant impact on the crystal methamphetamine trade in (Carson City) in the near future. This is a significant arrest," Jackson said.