Florence County Sheriff’s Office on $9M cocaine bust: ‘A very productive traffic stop’

FLORENCE COUNTY, S.C. (WMBF) – A judge denied bond on Wednesday for a man accused of having $9 million worth of cocaine in his car while out on bond for a murder charge.

Deputies stopped Sheldon Alexander, 34, of Los Angeles, California, on Monday for speeding on I-95.

The sheriff’s office said a deputy’s K-9 alerted authorities that something else was inside Alexander’s car.

During the search, deputies said they found 118 pounds of cocaine, $182,000 in cash and a gun.

The investigation also revealed that Alexander was in the country illegally from Trinidad and that he was out on bond for a murder charge out of California.

“He was determined to be in the country illegally, and he was out on bond for a murder charge in California so needless to say, this was a very productive traffic stop,” said Maj. Mike Nunn with the Florence County Sheriff’s Office. “And obviously, some of that cocaine was headed to other places, some of it may have been headed here.”

Nunn said illegal drugs drive a vast majority of violent and property crimes in Florence County, so getting that much cocaine off the streets is a win all around.

“Any time you can get drugs of this nature off the street, it is something that you want to do because those drugs are headed somewhere to some neighborhood, if not here somewhere else,” Nunn said.

Alexander faces a list of charges including trafficking in cocaine and possession of a firearm by an illegal alien.

Alexander will remain at the Florence County Detention Center. Nunn said there will be an opportunity for the suspect to petition a circuit court judge to make a modification to his bond, but no word if Alexander plans to do that.

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