It worked just like comedian Mitch Hedberg said it did -- "I like the FedEx guy, 'cause he's a drug dealer, and he don't even know it. And he's always on time."
And now 31-year-old Marco Ceja-Moreno is going to prison.
Ceja-Moreno pleaded guilty yesterday to drug distribution charges, according to the Sun-Sentinel, for his role in a meth-dealing scheme that included shipments from California to South Florida via FedEx, the U.S. Postal Service, and a dude on a bus.
Police say the setup was headed by a Californian named Michael Vukcevic, who got caught after a Fort Lauderdale meth dealer snitched on him to the federales back in November.
The informant said he'd been selling crystal meth out of regular shipments from Vukcevic since 2003, interrupted only when the informant went to prison.
When the informant got out of prison last year, police say, he started ordering Vukcevic's meth again. Law enforcement got the package instead, and flipped the man into talking. The package's interception made Vukcevic leery of using FedEx, so he sent the next batch -- 14 grams of 98-percent pure crystal meth -- through the regular mail, which police also received. Ditto another package just before Christmas.
Perturbed by all of his meth somehow ending up at police stations, Vukcevic said the next shipment would have a stamp on it -- it would be in a backpack, and taken to Fort Lauderdale by a guy named Justin Uhlmansick, who rode a bus with a backpack of meth all the way from Seattle, according to police.
Rather predictably, Uhlmansick was arrested as soon as he got off the bus.
He told police he got the job from Ceja-Moreno, whose name was also on a bank account used for the transactions. Uhlmansick reportedly told police he picked up the meth from a Long Beach bar Ceja-Moreno was working at, and was supposed to get $1,000 for the trip.
Records show the other two men did plead not guilty, but have scheduled change-of-plea hearings.
