There were some cookies (not these cookies), but mostly meth in a cookie box bound for St. Louis.
A man who was caught on his way to St. Louis with more than five pounds of meth hidden in a cookie box and nearly three pounds of heroin concealed in a pair of size eighteen shoes has pleaded guilty to federal drug charges.
Willie Braison, 47, of Jonesboro, Arkansas, was stopped in January 2019 by a member of a federal drug task force at a train station in Kansas City, Missouri. According to court records, Braison was carrying a grey suitcase and originally claimed he was heading back to Arkansas.
Authorities didn't say why they stopped Braison other than that they were scouting the train, Amtrak's Southwest Chief, because a lot of drugs come into the Midwest from Los Angeles that way. After briefly being questioned by a Kansas City police detective working with the task force, Braison agreed to let him search the suitcase, according to an affidavit.
Inside was a cookie box that had been glued shut. Inside that were several packages of cookies atop what would turn out to be 5.1 pounds of meth. Braison was placed under arrest, and federal agents searched the rest of bag, focusing on the giant black high tops that were far larger than what Braison was wearing. The insoles of the shoes were actually bundles of heroin, weighing a total of 2.9 pounds.
According to the affidavit, Braison admitted he was transporting the suitcase to St. Louis. He told the detective that he'd met a woman in Memphis who connected him to a man in L.A., who went by "Big Pun." Braison claimed he never knew what was in the cookie box or shoes, but he figured it probably was something valuable because he was to be paid $2,500 to deliver them to St. Louis.
After he was intercepted in Kansas City, the detective tried to persuade him to continue on with his delivery — while law enforcement trailed him — but he refused, saying he didn't want to get killed.
On Wednesday, he pleaded guilty in Kansas City to two federal felonies. He faces at least five years in prison and as many as six years and eight months.
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