Traffic stop leads to drug trafficking arrest

Community Affairs officer Corporal Catherine Payne reported to Historic City News that a man, stopped by deputies in the early morning hours yesterday for a minor traffic violation is in jail today in lieu of $175,000 bond and facing four felony charges along with five added misdemeanor charges.

When deputies pulled over 30-year-old Misael Adrian Pares Vargas on SR-207 just after midnight Friday morning, a responding K-9 unit, trained to locate narcotics, gave an alert signal to his deputy handler.

Deputies searched the vehicle and located less than 20 grams of cannabis, 50 grams of cocaine, various prescription narcotics, ammunition, a firearm, and a bulletproof vest.

Vargas provided officers with an address in North Miami Beach, however, according to the St Johns County Detention Facility records; he lists a post office box address in Atlantic Beach as his residence. It must get awfully cramped.

Charges against Vargas include trafficking in cocaine, commission of a first degree felony while in possession of a firearm, possession of drug paraphernalia, and possession of a bulletproof vest while committing certain criminal offenses, possession of less than 20 grams of cannabis and possession of a controlled substance without a prescription.