Clerk’s Keen Nose Aids in Drug Arrest

A postal-service-store employee with a keen nose was instrumental in the capture of a Northern California man wanted in connection with a large-scale marijuana cultivation operation in Missouri, police said Tuesday.

David Warren Smith, 32, of Ft. Bragg, a coastal town north of San Francisco, was arrested Monday by San Clemente narcotics detectives after he allegedly picked up a pound of marijuana that had been shipped from Mexico to Copy Shack, a photocopy shop and mail-receiving service in the 1100 block of South El Camino Real, San Clemente Police Sgt. Richard E. Downing said.

Smith was being held without bail in San Clemente City Jail pending arraignment today on marijuana-trafficking charges, Downing said. Smith could also face federal postal and customs charges in connection with the shipment.

Downing said that on Feb. 5, a clerk at Copy Shack received four “suspicious-looking” Manila envelopes that were mailed from “someplace in Mexico” and addressed to Dan Glickenhaus, Smith’s alleged alias.

The packages “smelled like marijuana, and (the clerk) notified the narcotics unit,” Downing said.

After inspecting the packages, each of which contained a quarter-pound of marijuana, detectives told Copy Shack workers to keep the 8-by-11 1/2 inch envelopes until someone arrived to pick them up, Downing said. Meanwhile, detectives staked out the operation.

At 10:30 a.m. Monday, Smith walked into the shop’s mail-receiving center and asked for the four packages, Downing said.

Detectives outside the shop watched Smith get into a late-model BMW with two other people, Downing said. The officers followed the BMW for one block, stopped it and arrested Smith.

His two companions were not taken into custody, Downing said. “They were released because they weren’t connected with the crime except that they gave him a ride,” he said.

Copy Shack employees declined to comment about their participation in the case.

Smith’s arrest provided a break for federal authorities who have been investigating a marijuana-processing ring in the Springfield, Mo., area, officials said.

Smith had been wanted since Jan. 28, when a federal arrest warrant was issued for him by a U.S. magistrate in Benton County, Missouri, a rural area between Independence and Springfield, law enforcement officials said. The warrant, which referred to Smith’s alleged alias, stemmed from a federal Drug Enforcement Administration investigation.

Smith and an unspecified number of other suspects were being sought in connection with the discovery of a major marijuana cultivation ring, Downing said.

“This (federal warrant) is for a large amount of marijuana plants,” he said.

Neither San Clemente police, the DEA nor the U.S. marshal’s office, which issued the warrant, would release further details.

Tom Snow, a spokesman for the U.S. marshal’s office in Springfield, said authorities there will seek Smith’s extradition.