'Little old granny' a trend in drug traffickers' trade

[Mugu]

McClatchy Regional News

SMITHFIELD (MCT) — Ruth Davis banked on looking like just another granny in the slow lane.

But the 65-year-old Floridian was on business. A high-dollar delivery — 33 pounds of premium pot — was locked up in the trunk of her rented Chevy Impala. She set her cruise on 74 as she headed north on Interstate 95 through Johnston County, bound for New York.

A North Carolina trooper got in her way that morning last December and, by chance, stumbled across a new type of drug mule. "I'm not someone you'd think would be doing this," Davis said this week during an interview at the Johnston County jail. "I guess that's why it was such a brilliant plan."

She's the newest face of the drug mule: frosted hair and crow's feet. From 2006 to 2007, the number of people over 60 charged with trafficking drugs in North Carolina state courts nearly doubled. In 2007, at least 44 elderly people were arrested for trafficking everything from marijuana to powder cocaine.

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