Tour bus used to smuggle cocaine

By NANCY BADERTSCHER
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 08/27/07

Three illegal immigrants were ordered held for trial Monday afternoon on charges they were part of a major operation smuggling cocaine into Forsyth County on a Texas tour bus.

Chief Magistrate Barbara Cole ruled that sheriff's deputies had sufficient evidence to arrest the three — Robert Doriz, Fredy Perez Hernandez and Freddy Vega — on drug trafficking and conspiracy charges.

The three and two others were caught Aug. 5 with about 90 pounds of cocaine and more than $700,000 in cash.

Forsyth County Sheriff Ted Paxton said the group brought the cocaine to the county on board a Texas tour bus, then took it to a home in nearby Milton, where it was repackaged for shipment to drug dealers up and down the Eastern Seaboard.

The cocaine was stashed in the wheel of the bus and unloaded outside a garage in south Forsyth County, said Sam Boone, a narcotics investigator with the Sheriff's Office.

Boone said garbage cans filled with bags of cash were then placed in a compartment on top of the bus for shipment to Mexico.

He testified that a "concerned citizen" alerted authorities that large shipments of cocaine had been seen being dropped at the garage about every one or two weeks.

The three suspects have been in the Forsyth County Jail without bond since their arrest. An interpreter translated for them at the hearing before Cole.

Attorneys for at least two of the defendants argued that there was not direct evidence linking their clients to the cocaine and that the trafficking charge against them should be dismissed.

Assistant District Attorney James Dunn told the judge that there was ample evidence that all three had some involvement and could be charged as parties to the crime.

"It's a no-brainer," Dunn said. "All the evidence from the [confidential informant] panned out."

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