On 2 June 2010 Boston police drug-unit officers, working with the Massachusetts State Police and the FBI Drug Task Force, were executing an unrelated warrant on Wilcock Street in Mattapan when a third-floor resident tried to flee and then admitted he had assumed they were after him.[1] Officers went to his third-floor apartment for a protective sweep, smelled marijuana through the open rear door, saw large trash bags giving off the odor, and froze the apartment pending a search warrant.[1]
The warrant search found forty bales of marijuana wrapped in black plastic, about 2,000 pounds, with an official street value of about $5 million.[1] Officers arrested Edgar Gonzalez, 40, of Boston, for trafficking a Class D substance; asked about the marijuana in his apartment, he said he knew nothing about it.[1]
Prosecutors called it the largest marijuana seizure in city history; contemporary reporting put the value at about $4 million and said officers also found scales, a vacuum sealer, shrink wrap and a Dominican Republic passport.[2] Gonzalez was held on $1 million bail with a trial date set for 30 June, and federal immigration authorities also lodged an immigration charge against him.[2]
