$1 million seized during traffic stop

YORK, Maine (FOX 25 / MyFoxBoston.com) - A truck carrying more than $1 million in $20 bills was stopped Friday in York, Maine, for a routine inspection.

State police say the $20 bills were neatly bundled and placed in orange plastic buckets.

The Maine State Police Commercial Vehicle Enforcement Unit stopped the Texas-registered truck in the southbound lanes of Interstate 95 at about noon on Friday.

The driver, 46-year-old Jose Javier Perez, and passenger 35-year-old Jhon Rivera-Ramirez, no addresses released, were found to be in possession of false logs.

Perez was arrested for that charge. A subsequent search of the trailer yielded a very large amount of US currency estimated to be in excess of $1 million.

According to police, in recent years, the smuggling of bulk currency has become the preferred method for criminals to move illicit proceeds across our borders. It is a crime to smuggle or attempt to smuggle over $10,000 in currency or monetary instruments into or out of the United States.