Two out-of-town men have been charged with attempting to ship more than 69 pounds of marijuana to an Oswego storage facility last month.

According to Kendall County court records, Leroy Scott, 47, of Scottsdale, Ariz., and William Townsend, Jr., 36, of Lockport, were both recently charged with possession of more than 5,000 grams of marijuana, a Class 1 felony, and manufacturing/delivering more than 5,000 grams of marijuana, a Class X felony, stemming from the May 10 incident.

Bail for both men was set at $200,000.

According to a search warrant affidavit filed by Kendall County Policing Assistance Team (KCPAT) members, investigators on May 10 were notified by the Homeland Security Investigations Task Force about a suspicious portable personal storage container (PPSC) that was intended for ABF Freight Systems in Oswego.

The shipping pod, which was to be delivered to the facility in the 1900 block of Wiesbrook Drive, was being shipped from California and was to be delivered to a Jason Daniels.

Task Force members became suspicious of the contents of the container, noting that the shipping fee was to be paid for in cash upon delivery, and required no photo ID to ship or retrieve. Stranger yet, they noted, was they that could find no record of Jason Daniels.

In the search warrant affidavit, task force members said that portable personal storage containers provided by businesses such as PODS, ABF Freight and Old Dominion, allow customers to load and unload containers without oversight and are often used by narcotics smugglers, gun runners and money launderers to move illegal contraband from city to city.

When the suspicious shipping pod caught the eye of investigators, an Illinois State Police Trooper and K-9 arrived at the pod to perform a sniff test for narcotics.  The dog alerted officers to the presence of drugs according to police.

The task force got a break around 10 a.m. on May 10.  A man, later identified as Scott, called ABF Freight to schedule a pick-up time to empty out his storage container.

Scott arrived with a second man, later identified as Townsend, and the two began to unload furniture from the storage pod into the bed of a pick-up truck. The two left the scene and were stopped a short time later in the parking lot of a business in the 0-99 block of Fifth Street.

At that time, the K-9 alerted, again, for the presence of narcotics, police said.

Police also noted it was raining, and the men failed to tarp or strap down the furniture they had loaded into the truck, furthering officers’ suspicions that the furniture was just a cover for the drugs.

A search warrant was issued, and police ended up finding a black tote with 29 bags, containing 14,615 grams of marijuana. They also found a second black tote containing 23 bags filled with 11,658 grams of marijuana. A black suitcase, continuing 10 bags filled with 5,099 grams of marijuana, was also confiscated.

— Police stop large shipment of marijuana to Oswego —