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Sonic Employee Arrested After Losing Bag of Cocaine in Customer's Hot Dog, Police Say

The woman, identified as Celine Gonzales, told police she discovered the baggie after taking a bite of her hot dog.

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A New Mexico Sonic employee has been arrested after allegedly losing his bag of cocaine while preparing a hot dog, police say.

Authorities say 54-year-old Jeffrey David Salazar was arrested Tuesday in Española after a woman found a bag of white powder inside her order.

The woman, identified as Celine Gonzales, told police she discovered the baggie after taking a bite of her hot dog.

Officers say Gonzales then spit out the bag but didn’t say whether she ingested any of the drugs, NBC affiliate KOB-TV reported.

“I think that’s pretty scary. We come here to get food for our families, and if a child found that it could have been pretty bad or deadly,” one woman told KOB-TV after ordering food from the same Sonic. 

In a court filing, officers claimed that surveillance video from the restaurant showed Salazar “frantically searching for something he lost” after making Gonzales' order.

Salazar then admitted to investigators the drugs belonged to him and told them he bought them from someone in the Sonic parking lot. 

Following the incident, Salazar was arrested and charged with possession of a controlled substance.

 Española is a town located around 90 miles north of Albuquerque.

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