When 25-year-old Danay Ojeda got into her car last Wednesday, she had no idea she was being watched. To her friends and neighbors, she was a fun-loving, dark-haired beauty who worked as a receptionist making $800 a week.
But an anonymous tipster had called Miami-Dade Police to tell them about another side of Ojeda’s life: Namely, she was allegedly running a sizable drug-trafficking operation out of the gated Beach Club in West Miami-Dade’s Fontainebleau neighborhood.
So detectives began tracking Ojeda. And on August 8, they were watching while she loaded 26 pounds of marijuana into the back of her 2017 Dodge Durango. When they arrested her and an older man in her SUV, the man, Daniel Solano-Gonzalez, quickly ratted her out as the big-time drug dealer.
“He stated he was just going along because he did not want her to go alone,” police said in an arrest report. “He made it clear the marijuana did not belong to him.”
MDPD began watching Ojeda after getting a tip July 25 that she regularly transported narcotics directly to her buyers, according to her arrest report.
Two weeks later, Det. Devon Dolam received an even more specific tip: On August 8, the informant said, Ojeda planned to make a big marijuana delivery. So the cops staked out her apartment.
Sure enough, police watched as she got into her SUV with Solano-Gonzalez and left the apartment complex around 5 p.m. Detectives Dolam and Jared Hahn, along with another cop, followed Ojeda onto the Palmetto Expressway and pulled her over as she exited at Bird Road.
A drug-sniffing dog named Roxi found her cargo in the trunk of her SUV. When they searched the Durango, detectives say, they found two large duffle bags in the back, one with 16 freezer bags full of pot, weighing one pound each, and the other with 12 bags.
The total, 26 pounds, was just enough to tip Ojeda and Solano-Gonzalez to charges that require a mandatory minimum sentence.
Police transported the two to the Midwest District Police Station. While Ojeda was in the bathroom, Detective Dolam told Solano-Gonzalez that he was being arrested for narcotics trafficking along with Ojeda. Solano-Gonzalez pinned it all on the young woman.
He “stated that he was not the owner of the marijuana and that Ms. Ojeda simply asked him to accompany her to go deliver it to someone.”
In the middle of placing all the blame on Ojeda, Solano-Gonzalez heard her returning from the bathroom. “I’m done talking about this,” he said, according to the police report.
The Cuban-born Ojeda has no previous criminal record — or even traffic infractions — in South Florida. But her online presence suggests a more glamorous lifestyle than an $800-per-week receptionist might expect. In photos on Facebook, Ojeda sports elegant clothes and designer jewelry at Miami Beach clubs and poses in a helicopter and on the waterfront in Cuba.
After her arrest, Ojeda spent five days in jail. She was released this past Monday on $25,000 bond; her arraignment hearing is scheduled for August 29. Solano-Gonzalez bonded out after paying $7,500 the next day and will be arraigned in September.
If convicted, Ojeda and Solano-Gonzalez face mandatory minimum sentences of three years plus $25,000 fines. Although recreational marijuana is now legal in nine states, anyone caught with more than 25 pounds of weed in Florida still faces felony charges.
Ojeda and Solano-Gonzalez have both pleaded not guilty.
Credit: www.miaminewtimes.com
