BOISE, Idaho — Idaho State Police officials say troopers made the biggest marijuana bust in the agency's known history after a semi truck allegedly filled with over 6,700 pounds of marijuana plants was stopped between Boise and Mountain Home on Thursday.
ISP spokesman Tim Marsano said Tuesday the truck from Portland, Oregon was stopped on January 24 as part of a routine, random commercial vehicle safety inspection. The driver's bill of lading - a document that details the cargo in the shipment - said the trailer was carrying 31 bags of hemp.
Marsano says the trooper detected a strong odor of marijuana during the inspection, and so opened one of the bags and performed a field test which showed the plant to be marijuana.
An ISP drug-sniffing dog was also called and alerted to the presence of drugs.
36-year-old Denis V. Palamarchuk of Portland was arrested and charged with felony marijuana trafficking.
"This is the largest Idaho State Police trafficking seizure of this type in any present-day trooper's memory," ISP Director Colonel Kedrick Wills said in a press release.
The plants have been sent to an independent lab for further testing.
Between 2014 and 2018, Idaho State Police say they seized the following amount:
2014 - 319 pounds
2015 - 458 pounds
2016 - 507 pounds
2017 - 1,375 pounds
2018 - 2,131 pounds
