Unpaid toll results in $1 million pot bust

Failing to signal a lane change and to pay a 60-cent toll may cost two men a lot more than traffic fines.

When a Kane County Sheriff’s deputy stopped them at 8:15 a.m. Jan. 14 at Route 31 and I-88 in North Aurora, he discovered 60 pounds of marijuana, valued at $1 million, in their trunk, officials said.

Pablo Galeana-Rueda, 34, of Aberdeen, Wash., and Jose I. Hernandez-Calderon, 41, of Santa Rosa, Calif., are each being held in the Kane County jail in lieu of $1 million bail.

Galeana-Rueda was driving the Chevrolet Impala east on I-88, exiting at Route 31.

The car was registered to an address in Oregon. That and the men’s addresses raised red flags with the deputy who pulled them over. He is a former narcotics-trade investigator.

“These guys did not pay a toll in front of the wrong deputy,” said Lt. Pat Gengler, the sheriff’s department spokesman.

Gengler said the marijuana was high grade and typical of that grown on the West Coast and in British Columbia, with high levels of the psychoactive THC.

Both men were charged with: cannabis trafficking, a Class X felony; delivery of more than 5,000 grams of cannabis, a Class X felony; and possession of more than 5,000 grams of cannabis, a Class 1 felony.

Besides the bail, both are being held on Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainers.

It is the second time in a month someone from California has been arrested in Kane County on a charge of marijuana trafficking. A 70-year-old resident of Cloverdale, Calif., was arrested in late December, accused of shipping 82 pounds of marijuana to himself from Santa Rosa to a freight company in South Elgin.