Four Siler City men arrested in drug busts

Siler City, N.C. — The Chatham County Sheriff's Office arrested four Siler City men in separate busts of cocaine and marijuana distribution rings in mid-November.

Chatham and Lee county sheriff's deputies and U.S. customs officials searched a residence on Fellowship Church Road. They seized two handguns, a shotgun, 4 kilos of cocaine, more than $96,000 and two motor vehicles, authorities said.

Alsibiades Arrizon Santoya, 25, Ontiel Perez Gallegos, 29, and Maria Espinoza Perea, 18, all of 405 Fellowship Church Road, were each charged with felony trafficking in cocaine, felony manufacture of cocaine, felony possession with intent to sell and deliver cocaine, felony maintaining a vehicle or dwelling place for controlled substance and possession of drug paraphernalia.

They were being held in the Chatham County Jail under separate $150,000 secured bonds.

Separately, Mark Lowe, 36, of 768 Willie Duncan Road, was arrested in an undercover operation in the WalMart parking lot by Chatham and Lee county sheriff's deputies and Liberty police officers. Officers said they seized more than 490 grams of cocaine from Lowe.

Chatham County sheriff's deputies charged Lowe with felony possession with intent to sell and deliver marijuana and felony possession of marijuana. Liberty police served warrants on him for two counts each of felony possession with intent to sell and deliver marijuana, felony selling and delivering marijuana, and felony selling and delivering marijuana within 1,000 feet of school property.

He was placed in the Chatham County Jail under a $110,000 secured bond.

Lowe is on probation for a June 2008 conviction on drug charges in Randolph County, according to state Department of Correction records. He also has convictions for common-law robbery and misdemeanor breaking-and-entering dating from 2000.