Affidavit: 'Invisible' spray links Youngstown man to 7-pound cocaine shipment
A federal grand jury is weighing the case of a Youngstown man arrested after a postal inspector said there is evidence that the suspect handled a package that once contained nearly seven pounds of cocaine.
A judge in U.S. District Court on Tuesday ordered that 42-year-old Luis Parrilla be held by U.S. Marshals on a charge of attempting to possess with intent to distribute cocaine.
Parrilla has been in the Mahoning County jail since his arrest last week following an investigation by a U.S. postal inspector who says he found 6.8 pounds of cocaine in a package sent to a Youngstown address from Puerto Rico.
According to an affidavit, after replacing the contents of the package with rock salt and a GPS tracker, an undercover agent delivered the parcel to a home on the 400 block of King Street in Youngstown.
Agents say someone driving a pickup truck retrieved the package and took it to an address on Pearl Street in the city.
That’s when agents say the GPS showed that the package was transferred to a black Acura being driven by Parrilla who then ran into a nearby wooded area, only to return to the home on Pearl Street.
Agents say they found the GPS tracker and the rock salt in the woods and arrested Parrilla at the home.
The affidavit says Parrilla denied knowing anything about the package. However, under black light, Parrilla’s hands were shown to be covered with an otherwise invisible substance that agents had sprayed on the package prior to delivery.