Jose Medina-Ayala, 23, is currently being held on a $100,000 bond after he was found with over 59 pounds of marijuana in his luggage at Nashville International Airport.
On Thursday July 5, investigators with the Nashville Airport Police CID unit, were assisting DEA with information that a person was traveling from Los Angeles, CA through BNA with drugs. A Metro drug detection K9, Boston, alerted to the odor of narcotics on the luggage of Jose Medina-Ayala.
A DEA agent, along with a local officer, made contact with passenger Medina-Ayala in the terminal and explained to him that a drug dog alerted to his bags. He was then walked to the gate area and he identified the luggage as his own, and then consented to a search of his luggage. The two pieces of luggage were searched by Airport CID detectives and approximately 51 vacuum sealed bags were inside.
CID detectives weighed each vacuum sealed package and they weighed approximately 1.15 lb to 1.25 lb each. A total weight for the marijuana was 59.25 lb. This amount of marijuana, the packaging, and the way it was concealed, is consistent with drug trafficking, according to officers. When counting the marijuana bundles, there was an odor of Febreeze coming from the bags, which was used to try to hide the odor of marijuana while it was being trafficked.
Medina-Ayala had $2,870 in cash on his person, consistent with payment as a courier to traffic narcotics. He told CID detectives multiple times that he didn’t know there was marijuana in the luggage. When questioned about the roll of hundred dollar bills, that was rubber banded, he stated “don’t you ever have cash on you?”. He continued to state that the money was his and not related to drugs.
When asked about his job, he stated that he works for a tree trimming company that recently lost its license to do business. Medina-Ayala was asked how much money he claimed in taxes and he advised that he never did his taxes. CID detectives asked to look at his phone, to see if there was anything about the tree trimming service in it and he stated that he didn’t want anyone looking at his phone. He was asked other questions about the marijuana and he advised that he didn’t want to talk about it further.
Medina-Ayala told CID detectives that that he bought his ticket the previous day for $585.00 dollars, and it was paid for with a Southwest gift card. According to detectives, when asked for his social and phone number, he told them to figure it out since they seem to know everything. He was not forthcoming with information and seemed to not care about being arrested the entire time, per the report. Medina -Ayala was asked if he wanted the luggage and he stated that police could have it. Jose Medina-Ayala was then arrested for possession with the intent to distribute and transported to Airport police station to complete paperwork before being transported to metro booking and given a copy of the forfeiture paperwork.
He is currently held on a $100,000 bond.
