{"id":50600,"date":"2020-11-05T23:48:37","date_gmt":"2020-11-06T06:48:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/cortez-man-arrested-in-drug-trafficking-investigation\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T03:52:27","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T09:52:27","slug":"cortez-man-arrested-in-drug-trafficking-investigation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/cortez-man-arrested-in-drug-trafficking-investigation\/","title":{"rendered":"Cortez man arrested in drug trafficking investigation"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Peltier\"
Peltier<\/span>du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The Cortez Police Department arrested a local man Wednesday morning as part of its investigation of a drug trafficking organization.<\/p>\n

Maynard Wayne Peltier, 68, is being held at the Montezuma County Detention Center on a no-bond drug felony warrant from Montezuma County and a $1 million bond warrant from Mesa County.<\/p>\n

Several pounds of meth were seized during the yearlong investigation.<\/p>\n

Lt. Andy Brock of the Cortez Police Department said that a pound of meth is worth about $20,000 in street value, but that value could easily increase to $40,000 if the meth is sold by the gram.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was supplying significant quantities of meth to the community,\u201d Cortez Police Chief Vern Knuckles told The Journal<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Peltier also is suspected of trafficking several pounds of meth to Grand Junction.<\/p>\n

Knuckles said law enforcement agencies hoped Peltier\u2019s arrest would decrease the supply of illicit narcotics in the area.<\/p>\n

Investigators from the Montezuma-Cortez Narcotics Team, the Cortez Police Department and the Montezuma County Sheriff\u2019s Office executed a search warrant Wednesday morning on Peltier\u2019s residence in Cortez when they received information that Peltier was hiding at another residence on Coronado Avenue, Knuckles said.<\/p>\n

Police executed the search warrant on the second residence, and Peltier \u201ctried slipping out the back door, but police made the arrest,\u201d Knuckles said.<\/p>\n

Police seized three handguns suspected to be stolen, an additional 12 grams of meth \u2013 worth about $300 in street value \u2013 and over $4,000 in suspected proceeds from drug sales.<\/p>\n

After the arrest, Cortez police found that Peltier had packed up his residence and had made plans to leave Cortez on Thursday, Knuckles said.<\/p>\n

Peltier has previous drug convictions, including distribution of illicit drugs. In 2015, he was sentenced<\/a> in Cortez to prison in a possession and distribution case, and he previously served prison time in the 1990s.<\/p>\n

The Montezuma-Cortez Narcotics Team, along with the Western Colorado Drug Task Force out of Grand Junction, is also investigating several individuals who allegedly sold illegal narcotics provided by Peltier.<\/p>\n

ehayes@the-journal.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

handguns, several pounds of meth<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":45081,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[13,28,167,51],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-50600","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-headlines","tag-local-news-lead","tag-police"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50600","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50600"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50600\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":87784,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50600\/revisions\/87784"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45081"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50600"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50600"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50600"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=50600"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}