WEBER COUNTY, Utah – Police have arrested a man and seized two pounds of methamphetamine and two pounds of cocaine, and officials said a man currently in jail on drug charges was arranging drug deals using the phone at the jail.
According to a press release from the Weber/Morgan Narcotics Strike Force, Jesus Mendoza-Gomez, a current inmate at the Weber County Jail, was attempting to arrange the “sale of large quantities of methamphetamine and cocaine.” The man was arrested January 23 of this year for possessing about half a pound of methamphetamine.
After he was booked into jail, police determined the man had entered the country illegally from Mexico and had previously been deported for a drug offense in 2012 under another name. While Mendoza-Gomez was awaiting trial, he was allegedly communicating with his brother, Javier Layva, via the jail telephone in order to arrange delivery of drugs to Mendoza-Gomez’s customers.
The Strike Force coordinated with the FBI and the Weber County corrections deputies, and on February 3 they conducted surveillance at an area in Farr West. As expected, Layva arrived at the location that had been arranged, and he was detained by police who found two pounds of methamphetamine and two pounds of cocaine in the man’s car.
According to the press release, agents then located the man’s home in Ogden, where they found another half of a pound of methamphetamine and a quarter of a pound of cocaine. Police also found more than $7.000 in drug proceeds. Officials stated in the press release the total street value of the methamphetamine seized is more than $70,000 and the cocaine more than $65,000.
Layva was arrested and booked into the Weber County Jail for possession of meth and cocaine with intent to distribute. Layva is in the United States illegally, and an immigration hold has been placed on him. Prosecutors are in the process of screening charges against Mendoza-Gomez.
