$70,000 found in safe during KC police traffic stop leads to drug-trafficking charges

It was just just before Christmas 2013 when Kansas City police officers made an extraordinary discovery during a routine traffic stop.

Inside a 2003 Humvee driven by Ronald D. Boyd, officers found a safe.

Inside the safe they found stacks of $100 bills totaling about $70,000.

It was the genesis of what would become a multistate federal investigation into a large-scale marijuana trafficking organization that has resulted in charges against Boyd and six other people.

Court documents reveal how police and federal agents tracked multiple shipments of high-grade marijuana from California to Boyd and his associates in the Kansas City area.

Searches of several Kansas City houses and during additional traffic stops as the investigation progressed resulted in the seizure of cash, drugs and multiple firearms, according to court documents.

The organization, allegedly led by Boyd, trafficked more than 200 pounds of marijuana since November 2012, according to the grand jury indictment filed last week in Kansas City.

Besides Boyd, 31, those charged are his wife, Suncera Boyd, 28, Augustine C. Aviles, 27, and Clifford Ray-James Jaushlin, 26, all of Kansas City, Samuel L. Allen, 43, of Raymore, and Vartan Minassian, 36, and Kent M. Lockhart, 59, both residents of California.

Kansas Cit police arrested Ronald Boyd on June 8 at a home he owns in the 5900 block of Brooklyn Avenue.

While searching the house, officers found “a large amount of green leafy substance” floating in a toilet, according to a search warrant affidavit. They also recovered a handgun and several bags of suspected cocaine.

When Boyd was found with the $70,000 in his car, he told police that he had the cash because he was a real estate investor, according to court documents.

Digging into Boyd’s finances, investigators found that he was the registered agent for a real estate company that owned four parcels of property in Kansas City. They also found that he had not been employed for six years and had no reported income during that period.

In May 2014, Kansas City police requested help from federal agents. Police received an anonymous phone tip about one of the houses owned by Boyd’s company in the 5200 block of Elmwood Avenue.

The caller told investigators that Boyd had installed security cameras on the house and appeared to be “living beyond his means due to the amount of luxury vehicles seen coming and going,” according to court documents.

While investigators conducted surveillance on the house, two men leaving the house spotted police officers and recorded them with their cellphones while the officers drove away.

Despite that, authorities said, Boyd allegedly continued his drug trafficking activities.

They discovered that he had set up a mailbox at a UPS store in Carlsbad, Calif.

Investigators with the U.S. Postal Service began tracking the delivery of packages sent from California to Boyd and his associates in Kansas City and Overland Park.

They obtained surveillance camera footage that showed Boyd mailing packages from post offices in California, according to the court documents.

Several of those packages were intercepted by investigators and found to contain shipments of marijuana.

Court documents also allege that a confidential informant working with investigators met with Boyd to make several drug purchases.

Last December, Kansas Highway Patrol troopers pulled over two vehicles traveling together on Interstate 70 in central Kansas. One was driven by Suncera Boyd. The other was driven by Ronald Boyd. Jaushlin was a passenger in that vehicle.

Inside the vehicle driven by Suncera Boyd, troopers found two duffel bags containing marijuana. The evidence was turned over to Kansas City police.

Ronald Boyd and Minassian are accused of laundering thousands of dollars in proceeds from the drug business. Boyd also is charged with two counts of possessing a firearm during a drug trafficking crime.

This story was originally published June 13, 2016 at 10:55 AM with the headline "$70,000 found in safe during KC police traffic stop leads to drug-trafficking charges."