Gift-wrapped packages are on display at a Colorado model home. (Cyrus McCrimmon, Denver Post file)

More gift-wrapped weed: $120K worth of pot found during Texas traffic stop

CONWAY, Texas — A California man faces drug possession charges after a trooper searched his vehicle in northwestern Texas and found $120,000 worth of marijuana, including some neatly wrapped in holiday gift boxes.

The Texas Department of Public Safety said Friday that a trooper stopped a pickup truck Wednesday night near Conway, about 25 miles northeast of Amarillo, and found more than 20 pounds of pot in the gift boxes and hidden in a spare tire.

Amarillo is about 370 miles northwest of Dallas.

The trooper arrested the driver, 50-year-old Frank Coronado of Turlock, California. The department suspects Coronado was trafficking drugs from California to Oklahoma City and charged him with felony possession of marijuana.

Coronado was freed Thursday on $10,000 bond.

Jail records don’t list an attorney to speak on his behalf.

‘Tis the season for this weed ruse. In late November, Nebraska law enforcement found more than 11 pounds of gift-wrapped marijuana in a car’s trunk.