UPS package filled with cocaine sent to Minnesota sniffed out by police K9

MINNEAPOLIS (FOX 9) - A drug investigation at a UPS facility snowballed into two arrests and a major weapons find at a Columbia Heights apartment.

Columba Heights cocaine arrests

What we know:

According to charges filed in Anoka County, on Thursday, Sept. 10, a narcotics detective with the Metropolitan Airports Commission Police Department was at a UPS sorting facility in Minneapolis conducting parcel checks for illegal drugs when he flagged two packages as suspicious based on their shipping labels.

A certified K9 partner, Goldy, was then given the command to "seek dope" when it sniffed through numerous packages in the facility without reacting — until he hit the two specific parcels. Goldy then gave a positive alert on both, and the packages were seized and taken to the Airport Police Department Criminal Investigations Office.

Dig deeper:

Once detectives executed a search warrant, they opened the parcels and found boxes hidden inside the shipping boxes, according to the charges.

Beneath spray foam and layers of vacuum-sealed bags, dryer sheets and other packaging material, they found multiple bricks of suspected cocaine, with one holding roughly 11.745 pounds, and the other held about 11.385 pounds, adding up to roughly 23.13 pounds combined. Both tested positive for the substance, charges allege.

Both packages came from the same sender address in La Mesa, California, with one was addressed to a "Lilsta Lilsta" at 4442 Tyler St. NE, Minneapolis, sent by a "Hassan Hessum." The other was addressed to a "Sarah Sarah" at 909 Gould Ave. NE, Apt. 557, sent by an "Ahmed Abdi." Public records and Google Maps identified the Gould Avenue address as being in Columbia Heights, Minnesota, inside a multi-unit residential building.

Charges state that detectives then swapped out most of the cocaine with a representative sample, and sent undercover detectives to deliver the package.

At around 1:06 p.m. on Sept. 10, detectives dropped the parcel off in the first-floor mailroom of the building. Shortly after, a man walked in and picked it up, later identified as Hamza Ali Salah, 23, from San Diego, California. He was taken into custody in the lobby just outside the mailroom.

Following Salah's arrest, detectives brought Goldy up to the fifth floor of the building, where he sniffed several apartment doors with no reaction until he reached Apartment 557, where he gave a positive alert, charges state.

At around 5:45 p.m. on Sept. 10, detectives searched the apartment, and when detectives entered, they located and arrested Nabil Ali Salah.

In a bedroom in the apartment, detectives reportedly recovered a Glock 17 handgun equipped with a machine gun conversion device and an extended 30-round magazine loaded with 25 rounds of 9mm ammunition sitting on the nightstand. Nabil's U.S. passport was also found in a dresser drawer in that room.

In another room, detectives also found an AK-47 style firearm on the floor near the bed with a loaded magazine containing 25 rounds of 7.62 ammunition, Hamza's U.S. passport card, a large amount of cash and a Glock 19 equipped with a machine gun conversion device and an extended 24-round magazine loaded with 19 rounds of 9mm ammunition.

The Source: This story uses information from a criminal complaint filed in Anoka County Court.