Palo Alto Police officers servicing the very important stolen iPad beat accidentally stumbled upon one of the biggest meth busts ever made in the U.S. this weekend. What's even more baffling than the unlikely clues that led to the seizure of some $35 million worth of the drug, is how the meth dealers-turned-iPad thieves let the cops stroll right in to their apartment where they were keeping the 780-pound stash.
According to the Santa Clara DA's office, Palo Alto PD officers were tracking down a stolen Apple device using the built-in GPS and the Find My iPad feature when they arrived at The Woods, a "fine-apartment living" complex in San Jose. The cops didn't have a search warrant (because that probably involves an annoying amount of paperwork for a stolen iPad), but the apartment's occupants allowed the officers to come in anyway, probably fearing the cops would suspect something if they didn't.
What the officers found inside was a stash of crystal meth scattered around the apartment that would have taken up "a space about the size of a walk-in closet," according to one Santa Clara County Assistant DA. The cops arrested three people on the spot and called in the DA's Major Narcotic Vendor Prosecution Unit to get a real warrant to seize the drugs, most of which were in a finished form of crystal meth. Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen was incredulous about the whole thing, as he told the Mercury News, "I told my dad about the bust... and he said, 'They have $35 million, and they can't go out and buy an iPad?' "
On average, about 100 pounds of crystal meth are seized in Santa Clara County every year, so it sounds like the narcotics unit down South could easily take some time off for the rest of this year.
