A Naperville man was arrested Wednesday after police found $1.7 million worth of cocaine and heroin hidden in his west suburban apartment.
Sergio Vergara-Cardenas, 29, is charged with two counts of unlawful possession of a controlled substance with intent to deliver, according to the DuPage County state’s attorney’s office.
Authorities conducting surveillance watched him leave his home in the 1800 block of Michigan Avenue in Naperville, then pulled him over when he failed to signal while turning right onto Route 59, prosecutors said.
As agents approached his car, they allegedly saw him try to put something from the back seat into the back of the front passenger’s seat, prosecutors said. The item turned out to be a shoe box filled with $250,000 in cash.
Vergara-Cardenas gave agents permission to search his apartment, where they found 17 kilos of cocaine and one kilo of heroin hidden in the residence, prosecutors said.
Together the drugs had an estimated street value of $1.7 million, authorities claim.
Judge Richard Russo ordered him held on a $1.7 million full cash bond at a hearing Thursday morning, the state’s attorney’s said. If Vergara-Cardenas posts bail, he must prove that none of the funds came from illegal activities.
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Vergara-Cardenas faces a sentence of 15 to 60 years in prison if convicted, the state’s attorney’s office said. He will next appear in court March 2.
“While we have made progress in ridding our streets of dangerous narcotics, this case unfortunately confirms that drugs are still in our communities in significant amounts,” DuPage County State’s Attorney Robert Berlin said in a prepared statement.
