A shocked mother of two called Chattanooga police earlier this week after she discovered a large bag containing a white powdery substance taped to the bottom of a ride-on Power Wheels Thomas the Tank Engine she had bought her 2-year-old son for Christmas.
After police tested the substance, it was officially determined to be cocaine – a whopping 2 pounds worth, or what is commonly referred to as a ‘kilo.’
Mary Ann Noe, 32, found the suspicious package taped on the underside of the battery-powered ride-on children’s toy after she turned it over to wash off oatmeal her 2-year-old son Kain had dumped on the kitchen floor and had been driving over.
“It scared me to death, I didn’t know what it was,” Noe told The Chattanooga Times. “It looked like a huge bag of cocaine, so I did like they do in the movies, and I stuck a knife in it, dipped my finger in, and tasted it like they do. Funny thing though, I don’t know what cocaine is even supposed to taste like, but my whole mouth went numb.”
Noe said she knew that the substance had to be something illegal, so she immediately called the police.
“When I called, a nice young officer came and took a sample of it himself and it numbed his mouth too. He then asked me for a baggie so that he could separate some of it to take to a lab. I gave him sandwich baggie and he filled it all the way up and put it in his pocket and took it with him,” Noe said. “He told me that the street value of the bag was probably close to $20,000 dollars.”
Chattanooga Police Department commissioner of Police, Albert Hughes Jr., said that somewhere along the way, that someone must have used the toy to transport the drug and it must have got mixed up with other packages. “It is really odd, usually in a case like this several other packages are used to smuggle the drug.No other parents have come forward saying they have found over two pounds of cocaine as of yet.
“The investigation is currently at a stand still,” Hughes said. “We are asking parents whose children may have recently acquired a Power Wheels Thomas the Tank Engine to check underneath for large bags of cocaine, and please report it immediately. Also, please try not to stick a knife in the bags and put any on your tongue.”