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ST. GEORGE — A passenger car with dark window tint passed by a deputy on Interstate 15 in Washington County on Wednesday, which led to a traffic stop that netted more than 62,000 suspected fentanyl pills.
Shortly after 11:30 p.m., a Washington County sheriff's deputy was parked in the median surveying northbound traffic along I-15 near the St. George Boulevard Exit "observed its front drivers window to be tinted passed the point of visibility into the vehicle," the deputy noted in the probable cause statement filed in support of the arrest.
A minute or so later, the vehicle was stopped for the alleged tint violation, and while explaining the reason for the stop, the driver, identified as a Mexican national, 19-year-old Rigoberto Beltran- Garibay, of Sinaloa, was asked to accompany the deputy to the patrol vehicle.
Meanwhile, a second officer responded and deployed a K-9 to conduct a free-air sniff around the exterior of the car, and the animal reacted to the possible presence of narcotics. The passenger, 29-year-old Karen Yvonne Alvarez, of Aurora, Colorado, was asked to step out of the vehicle