Pago Pago, AMERICAN SAMOA — Two people were arrested and charged after cops allegedly discovered drugs and paraphernalia inside a vehicle.

The two people are Margret Toese, the female driver and Latu Aleni, a male passenger.

Toese is charged with one count of unlawful possession of methamphetamine (meth), a felony.

Aleni is charged with one count of unlawful possession of meth and one count of unlawful possession of marijuana, both felonies.

Toese’s bail is set at $5,000 while Aleni’s at $10,000.

THE CASE

On Sept. 11, 2021, the DPS Vice and Narcotics Unit (VNU) was contacted about a matter where Patrol Officers at the Headquarter discovered paraphernalia inside a rental vehicle during a routine inspection of government property after hours. Information also relayed was the vehicle was impounded to the Tafuna Police Substation (TPS) waiting for the arrival of the VNU for further investigation.

Two detectives of the VNU were dispatched to the reported matter and later got the chance to review the evidence and interview the patrol officers who first encountered the vehicle involved.

According to patrolling officers’ statement to investigators, they were conducting their routine inspection when they came upon a vehicle parked without headlamps in the Industrial Park area in Tafuna.

As police got close to the vehicle, the person sitting on the driver’s side threw an empty soda can outside and that is when officers approached the driver of the vehicle.

The female driver was later identified as Margret Toese, the defendant in this matter, and the male passenger was Latu Aleni, the co-defendant in this matter.

One officer approached the female driver and knocked on the window but the door was locked and the driver appeared to be nervous and then threw an item into the backseat. At the same time the male passenger exited the vehicle with a black sling bag around his neck and chatted with officers.

The officer who approached the driver’s door instructed the driver to unlock the door and exit the vehicle immediately. As the female driver exited the vehicle, the officer observed a glass pipe commonly used to smoke meth on the passenger seat. Both the driver and the male passenger were detained and later transported to the TPS for further investigation.

Investigators also interviewed the other two police officers who were at the scene at the time when the paraphernalia was discovered, and they corroborated the first officer’s statement regarding what happened.

At the TPS, a search of the vehicle was conducted by other police officers where they discovered another glass pipe inside the overhead compartment containing a usable amount of meth.

Both the female driver and the male passenger were interviewed by investigators in separate rooms. Both were Mirandized, and both exercised their right to remain silent.

During the booking process, when asked about the black bag he was carrying he informed officers that it was not his.

Officers searched the black bag and discovered two glass pipes containing meth, along with paraphernalia. A body search of Aleni produced four hand rolled marijuana joints inside his pockets.