Green Bay Woman Unpacks Vacuum to Find $280K in Cocaine and Crystal Meth

Apparently, on Christmas Day, a Green Bay woman opened a sealed box containing a newly purchased refurbished Hoover vacuum cleaner, only to find several shrink-wrapped packages tucked inside the box. At first, she said she assumed these extra contents were vacuum attachments, filters and other parts.

Then came the real surprise. As the woman unwrapped her Christmas parcel, she discovered that her new vacuum came equipped with a huge supply of illegal drugs. Inside the shrink-wrapped parcels were 2.2 pounds of powdered white cocaine and two pounds of crystal meth.

The Green Bay woman called the local sheriff's department, who confiscated the drugs, estimating the total street value of the stash at approximately $280,000.

"This was an 'are you kidding me' incident," Lt. David Poteat, of the Brown County Drug Task Force, told reporters in Green Bay.

Local news reports varied, as to whether the Green Bay woman received the vacuum and its strange, apparently unexpected extra contents, as a gift from her children, or whether she purchased the home cleaning appliance herself in a local department store. The local store has been assisting local law enforcement officers in attempting to trace the history of the vacuum cleaner and its packaging.

After initial investigations, the Brown County Drug Task Force's Lt. David Poteat indicated that the illegal drugs were likely hidden inside the vacuum cleaner box by drug smugglers in Juarez, Mexico, where the appliance was refurbished, reassembled and packaged for shipment to the United States.

Of course, the Brown County Drug Task Force offered to purchase a new replacement vacuum for the astonished woman, who eagerly accepted. The Green Bay woman has not been charged, and investigators are attempting to uncover the originally intended trail of the smuggled drugs.

The Brown County Drug Task Force, which includes police chiefs from several Green Bay area communities (including Ashwaubenon, Denmark, DePere, Green Bay, Oneida and Pulaski), is works closely with the Federal Drug Enforcement Association (DEA) and other organizations. In 2010 alone, the Brown County Drug Task Force participated in 383 investigations, yielding more than 490 arrests and confiscating cocaine, crystal meth, heroin, marijuana, methamphetamines and other drugs worth nearly $2.65 million.

What's the moral of this Christmas season story?

The astonished Green Bay woman's tale of finding a $280,000 stash of powdered cocaine and crystal meth inside her new vacuum may offer several lessons for all of us. Here are a few possibilities.

Perhaps it is true that some Christmas presents actually do suck, no matter who purchases them or how much love and thought went into the process.

Maybe it's important for us all to be extra-specific when we make our requests from Santa Claus. Sometimes "I'm dreaming of a white Christmas" is simply too ambiguous, even in Green Bay, Wisconsin.

Occasionally, a home cleaning appliance, such as a vacuum, may lead to a clean sweep of an altogether different sort.

Finally, Green Bay residents may be justifiably leery of Packers from other parts.