Advertisement Retirement Homesites Magazine   Click Ad to pop-up full view

Drug mules don't usually drive Winnebagos.

But some seniors have been loading up RVs with a little something extra when they leave Arizona on their crosscountry trips: marijuana. Thousands of pounds of it.

Instead of campgrounds and national monuments, these retirees had lists of contacts for rendezvous in a transport scheme that federal officials say moved pot from the Grand Canyon State to Calif., Ill., Ind., NY and Wis..

"These drug dealers were utilizing older folks," Assistant U.S. Attorney Steven Logan said Thursday in Phoenix. "They figured if you were driving a motorhome and you were old, then you wouldn't be stopped."

And it apparently worked.

Authorities say 26-year-old ring-leader Michael Hernandez of Tucson, who was convicted on federal drug charges in Phoenix this week, once bragged that he was moving 2,000 pounds of pot a month using seniors and motorhomes. Hernandez was the latest of seven people convicted throughout the United States on charges relating to the drugrunning plot that originated in Arizona. He is awaiting sentencing. At least three seniors were caught making trips, but authorities said others were involved. The motivation: money.

"That's the only reason," said Kish Koritala, a federal agent assigned to the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force, which conducted the investigation. The scheme started to unravel in 2001, when 63- year-old Barton Smith was stopped in Holbrook. Police there asked to search his car and found 126 pounds of marijuana.

"At the time he was driving a Crown Victoria. But the only reason he was driving the Crown Vic was because it was post-911 and they were afraid police were stopping large motorhomes," Koritala said.

It wasn't long before Smith started telling authorities about the motorhomes and his connection to Hernandez.

This turned out to be the second bust Holbrook police tied to Hernandez. In 2000, another man had been stopped on Interstate 40 with a carload of marijuana. Koritala said the man identified Hernandez and agreed to help police.

Agents used hidden cameras and recorders to monitor Hernandez in meetings with the transporters.

Federal agents said two other "senior citizens" involved in the plot agreed to testify and were not charged.