-from wrbl.com-

By Susan-Elizabeth Littlefield

The Chambers County Multi-Jurisdictional Drug Task Force was part of that Opelika meth Tuesday and they are coming off the heels of a string of recent busts.

The task force executed search warrants and made 31 drug arrests over the past few months. This is a picture of some of the confiscated cash. The money, according to Commander Mike Parrish,it goes right back into the Task Force’s budget.

A taskforce gathered guns and drugs as they served those warrants. Charges on the folks who were arrested range from possession of methamphetamine to unlawful manufacturing of a controlled substance to possession of precursor chemicals.

Here is a release from The Multi-Juridictional Task Force released the following news release Tuesday:

Members of the Chambers County Multi-Jurisdictional Drug Task Force have executed search warrants and conducted investigations over the past few months resulting in the following arrests:

1. Jerry Lee Murry, 57, Lanett, Attempt to Commit a Controlled Substance Crime
2. Kelvin Bernard Howell, 23, Lanett, Possession of Marijuana 1st Degree
3. Larry Jerome Jackson, 51, Lanett, Attempt to Commit a Controlled Substance Crime
4. Christopher Dickinson, 37, Fairburn GA, Possession of Methamphetamine, Possession of Drug Paraphernalia
5. Jennifer Renee Rahman, 33, Hampton, GA, Possession of Methamphetamine, Possession of Drug Paraphernalia
6. Edwin Dee Dennis, AKA “DJ”, 35, Valley, Possession of Precursor Chemicals
7. Tricia Harper, 27, Valley, Possession of a Forged Instrument 2nd Degree
8. Jennifer Ann Wofford, 35, College Park, GA, Possession of a Controlled Substance (2 Counts), Attempt to Commit a Controlled Substance Crime
9. Dana Lee Brock, 42, College Park, GA, Possession of a Controlled Substance (2 Counts), Attempt to Commit a Controlled Substance Crime
10. Kimberly Jean Irvin, 43, Lanett, Attempt to Commit a Controlled Substance Crime, Possession of a Forged Instrument 2nd Degree
11. Eric Clayton Anamaet, 47, Lafayette, Attempt to Commit a Controlled Substance Crime
12. Rhonda Leigh Simms, 50, Lafayette, Attempt to Commit a Controlled Substance Crime
13. Diane Lolley Dozier, 37, Hurtsboro, Possession of Methamphetamine
14. Rodney Michael Jones, 28, Cusseta, Possession of Methamphetamine
15. Patrick Joel Allen, 28, Opelika, Possession of Methamphetamine
16. Karlo Dejuan Burton, 23, Lanett, Distribution of a Controlled Substance (Crack Cocaine)
17. Bobby Calloway Jr., AKA “Champ”, 23, Lafayette, Possession of Cocaine, Possession of Marijuana 1st Degree
18. James Anthony Echols, 46, Valley, Unlawful Manufacture of a Controlled Substance 2nd Degree, Possession of Methamphetamine
19. Mario Bernard Bell, 25, Lafayette, Disorderly Conduct
20. Terry Bernard Marshall, 38, Valley, Possession of Cocaine, Possession of Marijuana 1st Degree, Resisting Arrest, Assault 2nd Degree
21. Kimberly Denise Estes, 39, Valley, Possession of Morphine
22. Raymond Lee Greer Jr., 32, Lafayette, Possession of Marijuana 1st Degree, DUI
23. Michael Dale Kilgore, 42, Newell, Possession of Precursor Chemicals
24. Jeremy Cofield, AKA “Bubba”, 27, Lafayette, Possession of Precursor Chemicals
25. Shaun Alan Harper, 28, Roanoke, Possession of Precursor Chemicals
26. Stephen Williams, 20, Valley, Possession of Marijuana 2nd Degree
27. Amanda Delena Adams, 39, Lafayette, Possession of Marijuana 2nd Degree, Possession of Drug Paraphernalia, Possession of a Prescription Medication
28. Ronald Elton Adams, 46, Lafayette, Possession of Marijuana 2nd Degree, Possession of Drug Paraphernalia, Possession of a Prescription Medication
29. Maurice Heard, 30, Lafayette, Possession of Marijuana 1st Degree, Possession of Drug Paraphernalia
30. Demetrius Deon Harrrington, 31, Lafayette, Possession of Marijuana 2nd Degree
31. Donna Lynn Hood, 48, Five Points, Possession of Methamphetamine, Possession of Drug Paraphernalia

-from azcentral.com-

By Sean Holstege, AZ Republic

U.S. customs agents in Nogales announced Thursday a record heroin seizure, leaving no doubt: Heroin is back in style and in full force.

The 47-pound load of Mexican black-tar heroin agents found hidden in a car Monday is the kind that’s fueling the habits of teenagers in Phoenix, police say. And the availability of cheap heroin is growing.

Since Oct. 1, Nogales agents have seized more heroin than in any full federal year, with three months left to count.

A large investigation by Phoenix police early this year explains why: Investigators noticed young people between the ages of 16 and 22 were the most frequent users. And they were shooting up, not smoking it.

“It was shocking to me they were all so young, because when I started these cases years ago, we’d see people 35 or older and really destitute, down-and-out types. These kids were driving up in nice cars,” said Lt. Vince Piano, an investigator on Phoenix’s drug squad.

One was a 23-year-old woman who had an infant baby and had been hooked since she was 14, he said.

Black-tar heroin isn’t just hip, it is cheap. A high costs as little as $10. Many of the young users told Piano they came from well-off families and got hooked on their parents’ prescription painkillers, which today cost four times as much as heroin on the street.

Adding to the drug’s lure are the climbing street prices of methamphetamine and cocaine, caused by a crackdown on smugglers of both drugs by authorities on both sides of the border, local and federal drug investigators say.

Authorities across the country have reported a spike in heroin seizures and use. Arizona has always been known more as a capital of marijuana smuggling, distribution and use, but Monday’s enormous bust showed that’s changing.

The bust and its scopeMonday’s seizure happened when a Mexican man drove a Volkswagen Jetta up to the border crossing in downtown Nogales early Monday afternoon. He had valid documents, but when the customs agent noticed something unusual about the car, the driver got nervous. During a detailed follow-up inspection, agents found the drugs hidden in secret compartments in the back bumper and trunk.

Agents took $1.2 million worth of heroin.

It was an eye-opener, not just in size but in method. Typically, Mexican drug cartels smuggle heroin is small amounts over the border. Texas customs agents report finding heroin molded into the soles of shoes or hidden in ice chests.

The 47 pounds amounts to one-tenth of all the heroin seized in an entire year in all of Mexico, where the opiate poppy grows. It’s more than what was seized by customs agents in west Texas for each of the past four years, and nearly four times all the heroin seized at the busy Laredo crossing for last year.

But Laredo shot up from 12 pounds in the year ending Sept. 30, 2007, to 57 pounds for the nine months since. By this week, Nogales agents had seized 225 pounds, more than double all the heroin seized throughout Arizona last year and approaching the amount stopped in Southern California, where nearly half the black tar typically crosses the border.

“We are seeing a spike,” said Lt. Rocky Quejada, who oversees a statewide drug task force. “Arizona is the path of least resistance with the pressures being felt in California and Texas.”

He credits border efforts there with making it harder to smuggle heroin across. But escalating warfare among cartels south of the border over prime smuggling routes, and between cartels and the Mexican army, has made the less bloodied Sonora-Arizona crossing more attractive, too.

Spreading violence?That violence does not look like it will migrate to the streets of Phoenix or Tucson soon, said Quejada and Anthony Coulson, the DEA assistant special agent in charge in Tucson.

Coulson said heroin supply is more tightly controlled than marijuana, which has been the root of bloody gang-on-gang shootouts in Arizona streets. As long as cartels agree to pay a set shipment rate to each other to smuggle heroin on their routes, that sort of violence is unlikely to erupt here.

Instead, as more Arizona residents get hooked on the increasingly potent black tar, they will need to find money to support their habit, and that means more break-ins and robberies, Quejada said.

Mexican productionU.S. authorities attribute the growing supply of heroin in the U.S. to increased production and lower eradication of poppies in Mexico.

The poppies used to make black tar grow in the mountainous region of Sinaloa, Durango and southern Sonora.

The latest figures available from the National Drug Intelligence Center show that Mexican heroin production rose from 8 metric tons in 2005 to 12.7 tons in 2006. About 95 percent of it made it into the United States.

A U.S. State Department report noted the Mexican government last year destroyed half as many poppy fields as two years ago. In recent years Mexico’s focus turned to cocaine shipments and marijuana farms. Mexico seizes tiny amounts of homegrown heroin, mostly in Sonora, Chihuahua or Mexico City because it’s often hidden in air or truck cargo.

It’s hard to stop because profitable amounts can be shipped in small, easy-to-hide quantities. Trafficking is run by loose networks of small-scale farmers, processors and traffickers.

And it continues to get into the United State in bigger volumes.

“It’s a border-wide phenomenon,” Coulson said. “We’ve seen a dramatic increase in heroin seizures here and in California.”

-from ksbw.com-

Growers exchanged gunfire with police

SARATOGA, Calif. — A pot bust near Saratoga Hills turned deadly Thursday morning as shots rang out leaving one dead and two on the run.

Officials said the two suspects on the run were considered to be armed and dangerous.Deputies said they warned people living in the area to be on the lookout for the two men, but avoid encountering them. The person who died was believed to be one of the people responsible for growing or managing a marijuana garden in Saratoga off the 16000 block of Bolhman Road, behind Los Gatos.Deputies and the suspected pot growers exchanged gunfire about a half-hour after officers went in, heavily armed, to eradicate the marijuana plants.The person who died did so at the scene.

-from new.hkastv.com-

By James Wilcox
More than 100 pounds of marijuana is off the streets after 2 separate traffic stops on Interstate 80. On Friday, an Arizona couple was pulled over for speeding on Interstate 80 – just east of Highway 281.

The State Patrol searched the couple’s SUV.

The trooper found nearly 90 pounds of marijuana hidden inside a spare tire.

“The reason for the trip did not make sense and he just looked beyond the initial traffic stop and his suspicions were founded in this case with the location of 89 pounds of marijuana,” said Captain Chris Kolb.

Another stop on Saturday sent a Maryland man to jail.

He was pulled over for speeding on I–80 near Kearney.

A search of his vehicle found 35 pounds of marijuana.

All three people were jailed on a charge of possession of marijuana with intent to deliver.

-from theglobeandmail.com-

By Brodie Fenlon

TORONTO — Two Toronto police officers and three corrections officers have been charged with drug-related offences in a large-scale bust of marijuana grow operations in the Greater Toronto Area.

Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair announced the charges at a press conference Thursday, hours after police executed 63 search warrants throughout GTA.

Of 23 people arrested, 20 were charged, including a young offender. The police officers, who are suspended with pay, are constables with more than eight years of experience each. They are scheduled to appear in a Newmarket court Friday.

Toronto police identified the accused officers as Kevin Bourne, a nine-year veteran based at 51 division, and Patrick Lee, an eight-year veteran based at 31 division.

“When we have behaviour as is alleged in this investigation, where members of our service are alleged to have been involved in a criminal enterprise, it is more than merely a betrayal of their oath of office,” Chief Blair said.

“It is, frankly, a betrayal of all of the hard-working and decent men and women of the Toronto Police Service and the policing profession in this country.”

Chief Blair said an internal professional standards investigation was launched after one of his officers was identified in February as having a connection to a residence that was under investigation for marijuana offences by the York Regional Police Service.

Internal affairs investigators conducted surveillance, interviews and executed search warrants over several months, he said.

“Over the course of this investigation, the professional standards branch discovered that a second member of our service, along with three corrections officers and a number of private citizens, were involved in a criminal enterprise, the primary purpose of which was the production and distribution of marijuana, the distribution of other drugs, and the laundering of the proceeds of their criminal enterprise,” Chief Blair said.

Superintendent James Ramer said the accused are alleged to have participated in an “elaborate criminal organization” that lasted more than two years and involved other drugs, including Ecstasy and steroids. Police seized three houses, five vehicles, $60,000 in cash and nearly eight kilograms of marijuana, Supt. Ramer said.

“It’s certainly disappointing to find out that you have two of your own members involved, but it’s work that needs to be done. We have to ensure the public trust and public confidence,” he said.

“We are very disappointed by this investigation,” Chief Blair added.

“This has been an exhaustive investigation, it has included countless hours of surveillance, just a huge amount of work … We determined that two or our members were engaged in criminal behaviour, and we also determined that no other member of this service was in any way connected to this criminal enterprise.”

-from thechronicleherald.ca-

Halifax Regional Police arrested two men on cocaine charges after stopping a car in Bedford on Wednesday afternoon. Officers pulled over a car 4 p.m. and found some cocaine on one of the two occupants.

A 20-year-old Bedford man was due in Halifax provincial court Thursday on drug possession and trafficking charges, and a 19-year-old from Hammonds Plains will appear in court on the same charges later.

-from suntimes.com-

A three-month undercover investigation by Chicago police that included 25 controlled crack cocaine purchases at a Chicago Lawn neighborhood hot spot for drug activity netted 10 arrests and warrants for two others.

Operation Rock Creek was launched in the area of 63rd Street from Western Avenue to Rockwell Street on the South Side, based on the concerns of district commanders and complaints from residents, a release from News Affairs said.

As Narcotics Section Squad A-2 gathered intelligence, they found the Gangster Disciples largely controlled drug sales in the area, the release said. Drug dealers and buyers blended into the crowds of shoppers patronizing businesses along 63rd while nearby multi-unit buildings masked illegal transactions from public view.

The area was particularly violent, as well. Three of five homicides that occurred between June 2007 and June 2008 happened while the squad worked to dismantle the drug market.

Officers made 25 controlled crack cocaine buys, recovering 14.2 grams of cocaine with an estimated street value of $1,746. The team netted an additional $313 in cash and 12.2 grams of white heroin valued at about $1,830 while taking targeted offenders into custody.

Those arrested ranged in age from 19 to 44, according to the release. They were each charged with delivery of a controlled substance. Two others, 23-year-old Shante Harvey and 29-year-old Marcus Brewer, are wanted for delivery of a controlled substance.

-from rockymoutnainnews.com-

By Tracee M. Herbaugh & Bill Scanlon

The 34 people indicted in an alleged Front Range drug-trafficking ring Monday included four women; whites, blacks, Asians, and Hispanics; at least two who live in million-dollar houses; and 13 suspected illegal residents.

Thirty of the 34 have been arrested, and warrants are out for the other four.

Jefferson County prosecutors said $4 million of cocaine was distributed each month in homes and other locations in

Westminster, Wheat Ridge, Thornton, Arvada, Aurora, Denver, Fort Collins, Highlands Ranch and unincorporated Jefferson County.

The West Metro Drug Task Force and the Drug Enforcement Administration started the operation in September, and it was ready for the grand jury in April.

Dubbed Operation Shoestringto reflect shrinking budgets for drug enforcement, the investigation effectively disabled the ring, which also had brought large amounts of marijuana to the area, said Jefferson County Sheriff Ted Mink.

A grand jury returned 141 counts.

Among those indicted was Terrie Spieker, owner of a $1.2 million home in Highlands Ranch. Prosecutors allege that she bought cocaine Feb. 3, Super Bowl Sunday, in the parking lot of the Red Robin restaurant at 63 W. Centennial Blvd.

Peter Bidgood, charged with intent to distribute cocaine, lives in Greeley in a home worth “about $2 million,” said Mike Turner, spokesman for the Jefferson County District Attorney’s Office.

“This gives you an idea of the tentacles of this organization,” said Jeffrey Sweetin, a special agent for the Drug Enforcement Administration. “What it also says is that a gated community won’t do everything for you. If you leave that gated community, you may be parked next to a cocaine dealer at Red Robin on Super Bowl Sunday.”

The alleged 13 highest-level members of the drug ring were charged with racketeering, violation of the Colorado Organized Crime Control Act, a Class 2 felony, in addition to other charges.

According to the indictment, Martin Vega-Beleta was the highest-ranking member of the organization and the source of cocaine that came from Mexico to the Phoenix area and then to Colorado.

His girlfriend, Norma Yudith Talabera-Espinoza, served as his lieutenant, and Erick Fernando Chaparro-Franco is suspected of being the drug runner.

Vega-Beleta would travel back and forth between Denver and the Phoenix area, transporting money for the delivery of cocaine and marijuana to Denver, authorities said.

At the next level were the high-volume dealers, purchasing cocaine in kilogram quantities and distributing it to the people below them, the indictment said. Those alleged high-level dealers included Sergio Flores-Hernandez, Jaime Esparaza-Arreola, Sergio Munoz-Maltes and Juan Aguilar-Martinez.

Those indicted for allegedly purchasing large quantities, then breaking them down to sell by the ounce, were Alejandro Banuelos-Serna and his girlfriend, Mirella DiFranco, Federico Banuelos and Samuel Martinez.

The lower-level people indicted are accused of dealing at several locations along the Front Range, including the Denver Public Library at 2401 Welton St.; Colorado Mills shopping mall, 14500 W. Colfax Ave.; and El Ballezano boot store at West First Avenue and Federal Boulevard.

The $4 million in cocaine brought to metro Denver each month amounted to about 110 pounds a month.

Agents seized about 13 pounds of cocaine with a street value of $500,000 and 25 pounds of marijuana, with a street value of $10,000.

They also seized $500,000 in cash and six handguns.

According to the indictment: “Members of the enterprise do not always know all of the other members of the enterprise, but all members of the enterprise know that there are other people involved in the various levels of sale/distribution process.

“Knowledge of the various members is intentionally limited in the enterprise to protect the enterprise from law enforcement.”

Prosecutors said members of the ring often used cell phones and text messages to communicate, and their conversations were “disguised by the use of code and vague terminology to further frustrate law enforcement.”

“In general, the quantities identified in this indictment are quantities that will be used for resale and not just for personal use,” the indictment states.

Jefferson County District Attorney Scott Storey credited the West Metro Drug Task Force, the DEA and his prosecutors for making it “easy for the grand jury to do their job” and stopping this stream of drugs.