CEDAR CITY — Two 23-year-old women were arrested following a traffic stop in Iron County late Sunday night after a search of their vehicle reportedly yielded 25 pounds of fentanyl pills and other drugs, along with several thousand dollars in cash.
Andrea Carbajal and Yusbelly Pinto were booked into Iron County Jail early Monday. Each faces multiple felony counts of possession of a controlled substance with intent to distribute, along with two counts each of child endangerment, a third-degree felony.
The endangerment charges stem from the fact that two children, ages 2 and 15, had reportedly been riding without seat belts in the vehicle’s back seat at the time of the traffic stop.
Additionally, Carbajal, who was driving the car, faces misdemeanor charges related to providing false information to police, obstruction of justice, driving without insurance and driving on a suspended or revoked license, along with a window tint infraction.
According to the probable cause statements filed Monday in support of the arrests, a Utah Highway Patrol trooper was monitoring northbound traffic on Interstate 15 near Exit 63 in Cedar City at approximately 10:50 p.m. Sunday when he witnessed an orange Dodge Charger driving slowly in the left lane with window tinting that appeared to be darker than Utah’s legal limit.
File photo of Iron County Jail, Cedar City, Utah, Aug. 17, 2023 | Photo by Jeff Richards, St. George News / Cedar City News
The trooper wrote in the affidavit that the driver “struggled to spell her own name and give us a description of the trip the group had taken.”
“She also struggled to determine ownership of the car, insurance status, and did not know what year the vehicle was, which had only been registered three days prior,” the affidavit further alleges.
Suspicious of criminal activity, the trooper indicated that he called for another UHP trooper’s K-9 to conduct a free-air sniff of the vehicle, which resulted in a positive indication.
During their subsequent search of the vehicle, officers reportedly found the following:
Twelve packages of blue M-30 pills consistent with fentanyl, with a total weight of about 25 pounds, located in a bag in the trunk.
A sealed box underneath the driver’s seat containing two vacuum-sealed kilos of unknown powder and a garbage bag with two more kilo packages, with a total weight of about nine pounds.
Multiple rubber-banded stacks of approximately $7,400 worth of U.S. currency in the front seat area.
Loose fentanyl pills on the floor of the back seat.
Marijuana dispensary containers with some marijuana products in the trunk.
According to the affidavit, Carbajal is reportedly on probation out of California for drug trafficking; her driver license has also been revoked for DUI. Meanwhile, the identification that Pinto provided to officers was purportedly issued in Venezuela.
Both suspects are being held without bail as they await their initial court appearances.
This report is based on statements from court documents and law enforcement officials and may not contain the full scope of findings. Persons arrested or charged are presumed innocent until found guilty in a court of law or as otherwise decided by a trier-of-fact.
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