Adrelos Sanchez Waters drew suspicion as soon as the woman at the baggage check-in counter in McAllen, Texas, all of seven miles from the Mexican border, checked in his two pieces of luggage. They were heavy, much too heavy to just contain clothes and toiletries.
She contacted McAllen police, who in turn relayed the information about Waters and his suspicious luggage to DFW Airport, where he had a connecting flight.
There, as he waited in Terminal A for his flight to Atlanta, Waters was met by a pair of DEA agents who began asking about his travel. Waters told the agents that he had just finished up a week-long landscaping job in McAllen and was headed back home to Georgia.
That explanation might have passed muster, given McAllen's well-established practice of importing landscaping help from Georgia, but agents felt that Waters was acting suspicious. According to a federal court filings, he "gave evasive answers, often mumbling and beginning to visibly sweat," when asked why he had traveled so far for a job that lasted just a week.
He hesitated, too, when asked to describe his luggage but finally told agents that there were two pieces, one red, the other black, both the rolling kind. When they asked if they could search, Waters gave his OK.
The DEA's drug-sniffing dog, Cody, met Waters' plane on the tarmac and had no trouble sniffing out Waters' luggage. Filling each suitcase -- dimensions 29" x 18" x 10", or about three cubic feet -- was a single plastic-wrapped bundle packed tight with what appeared to be marijuana. All told, there were 34 kilograms, or about 75 pounds.
Waters was placed under arrest and read his Miranda rights, at which point he refused to answer any more questions. Waters was taken to the Tarrant County jail. He was charged Monday with trafficking marijuana.