Drug-Filled Mountain Dew Lookalike Bottles: What You Need to Know
It goes without saying that most people who possess or transport illicit drugs try to keep their stash out of sight as much as possible.
Sometimes, those people devise rather ingenious methods for keeping their stash hidden away from prying eyes, particularly from law enforcement officers.
One such method is fake soda bottles that look strikingly similar to the real thing, but upon closer inspection are found to have a compartment hidden inside.
The following story out of Kentucky in 2015 highlights the arrest of a man in possession of multiple baggies of methamphetamine that were stashed inside what appeared to be a plastic Mountain Dew bottle.
According to WKYT, a man named Elbert McFadden was pulled over after local London police spotted him driving erratically. A quick search of the driver and vehicle turned up some marijuana and drug paraphernalia, which prompted a more thorough search of what turned out to be a fake soda bottle.
“This is not something that you see every day,” stated Sgt. Travis Hurley of the London Police Department. “It’s certainly something that could’ve easily been overlooked.”
Hurley explained that the bottle “had a different look and a different feel. It isn’t what you would think it feel like when you squeeze a bottle because it was hard and didn’t have any give.”
The officer’s first indication that something was awry with the bottle was the two different shades of liquid inside of it — a clear, water-like substance at the top of the bottle and the more familiar yellowish Mountain Dew near the bottom, beneath the label.
“The officer was able to pull the bottle apart and inside of the compartment were more baggies of a substance,” Hurley explained. In all, there were 13 baggies of meth stuffed inside the fake bottle.
“This bottle or other bottles like it have probably been passed over before at a road stop or traffic check,” he said. “When we see a Mountain Dew bottle or any kind of water bottle in a cup holder, officers will now know to look a little bit closer and see if this is what it appears to be.”
McFadden was arrested and charged with first degree felony drug trafficking.
As for the fake bottles used to stash drugs, that trick really isn’t all that new or unheard of, and has been a favored tactic of druggies and dealers or even regular people simply trying to hide away valuable goods in plain sight.
In fact, a simple internet search will turn up hundreds of different sites selling similar fake bottles and cans and other common household items while other sites provide information on how people can construct a fake stash bottle themselves.
Nevertheless, if you have kids or young adults around that you suspect may be abusing drugs, it is worth checking out anything that looks suspicious or out of place that may in fact be hiding their illicit stash.
Please share this on Facebook as a reminder to everyone of how some ingenious drug users and dealers like to hide their stash of narcotics in the open where they think nobody will ever look.
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