Three Charged In Drug Operation

BY JOHN PATTERSON
SALISBURY POST

A 27-year-old Salisbury man and two other men who allegedly led undercover authorities to his house to buy cocaine ended up in the Rowan County Detention Center Thursday night, each with $500,000 bonds.

The two men, from western North Carolina, led undercover police officers from Lenoir to Julio Cesar Dimas-Mariano’s mobile home, located at 285 Arrowood Road in northern Rowan County. The two men – Juan Nunez Tiscaveno, of Zionville, and Jose Carlos Sanchez, of Boone – allegedly led the officers to Dimas-Mariano’s residence to purchase a half-kilo of cocaine.

Once it became clear where Tiscaveno and Sanchez were leading the officers, authorities notified the Rowan County Sheriff’s Department, who arrested the two men just moments after they pulled away from Dimas-Mariano’s mobile home.

Authorities then searched Dimas-Mariano’s mobile home, where they found the cocaine, approximately 50 pounds of marijuana, $21,000 in U.S. currency, a 9-mm handgun and drug paraphernalia. The street value of the seized cocaine (about 1.1 pounds) was estimated at more than $50,000; the marijuana, wrapped in plastic, was valued at $120,000.

Thursday’s events started in Lenoir in Caldwell County, where two officers attempted to buy a half-kilo of cocaine from Tiscaveno and Sanchez around 4 p.m. The two men apparently told the officers ‘‘they knew where they could get the cocaine,’’ and led the officers on a winding route to Dimas-Mariano’s mobile home, according to Sheriff George Wilhelm.

‘‘The deal was made to take the officers to where they could buy the drugs,’’ Wilhelm said. ‘‘The officers originally thought they were going to end up in Ashe County ... but they kept following the two men (Tiscaveno and Sanchez), going through Iredell and Davie County before coming here.’’

Members of the Western North Carolina Drug Task Force, comprised of a number of law enforcement agencies, kept contact with the two undercover officers during the trip from Lenoir to Salisbury. Once the officers were inside the mobile home sometime after 5:30 p.m., Sanchez and Tiscaveno left, only to end up in the custody of the sheriff’s department.

The operation involved a number of agencies in addition to the sheriff’s department, including: the State Bureau of Investigation, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Catawba, Ashe, Davie, Iredell and Watauga county sheriff’s departments, and police from the Lenoir and Boone departments.

Dimas-Mariano, who is self-employed, was charged with trafficking in cocaine by possession, trafficking in cocaine by sale, conspiracy to traffic cocaine, trafficking in marijuana by possession and maintaining a place to keep, store and sell a controlled substance, all felonies.

Sanchez, 26, and Tiscaveno, 32, were each charged with trafficking in cocaine by sale, trafficking in cocaine by possession and conspiracy to traffic cocaine, all felonies.