Authorities in Iowa pulled over a suspicious tractor-trailer last week. Later, the truck was abandoned, but Iowa troopers found 778 pounds of marijuana.

According to a spokesman for the Iowa State Police, a trooper noticed a semi-truck with a dark-tinted windshield driving on Interstate 80 near Walcott, IA.

“He pulled him over and performed a Level 3 inspection,” Jessica Lown, a spokeswoman for the Iowa Department of Public Safety, told Land Line.

At that point, Lown said the trooper received a call from dispatch to tend to a car wreck nearby. The truck driver agreed to meet him at a fast-food restaurant at the nearby Iowa 80 Truck Stop, but when the trooper arrived about 10 minutes later, the man was gone.

Inside the truck, however, troopers found 778 pounds of marijuana after a drug dog from the K-9 unit indicated the truck was storing drugs.

The Iowa State Patrol hasn’t released a description of the driver, the truck or the identity the man gave to the officer.

“We don’t know where the truck driver is,” Lown said. “We’re in the process of finding out if this is the exact identity of the same person. It’s not unusual that somebody would give you false information.”

Lown predicted that the truck’s seizure and subsequent investigation could lead to a federal indictment.

“It’s still pretty early in the investigation,” she said.

– By Charlie Morasch, staff writer
charlie_morasch@landlinemag.com