US NC: Sheriff: County Is a Drug Hub
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URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v07/n088/a09.html
Newshawk: chip
Votes: 0
Pubdate: Sun, 21 Jan 2007
Source: Burlington Times-News (NC)
Copyright: 2007 The Times-News Publishing Company
Contact: http://www.thetimesnews.com/letter_to_editor/splash.php
Website: http://www.thetimesnews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1822
Author: Hannah Winkler
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm (Marijuana)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine)


SHERIFF: COUNTY IS A DRUG HUB

Alamance County Sheriff Terry Johnson says the county is a hub for drugs on the Eastern seaboard.

He cites Interstates 85 and 40 as a pipeline to bring drugs into and through the area. And, he says, it's one stop short of Interstate 95. This isn't a recent development, he said; it's historic. The drugs that are coming into Alamance County are coming in from Mexico, right up the interstate. The illegal drugs coming through Alamance County are worth billions of dollars, he said.

"It's stashed here and distributed all over the southeastern United States and up the Eastern seaboard."

Sheriff 's investigators have broken up drug rings they say ran between Burlington and Johnson City, Tenn., just over the state border. Drug trafficking got so bad that Tennessee officers had probable cause to pull over anyone with North Carolina license plates that came back to the county, sheriff 's spokesman Randy Jones said.

U.S. Attorney Gregg Sullivan, Chief of the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force in Chattanooga, Tenn., has handled numerous marijuana and cocaine cases, many of which have led back to Alamance County. One crack cocaine case between 2001 and 2003 led to the indictment of nearly 70 people from Burlington, Sullivan said. At that time, the drug traffickers were pushing between 30 and 50 ounces of crack cocaine per week. Sullivan said the drug rings are well-organized, with people having clearly defined roles in the drug trade. The intricate networks include transportation couriers, dealers to repackage and distribute the cocaine and people and businesses as fronts in both states.

"Individuals were recruited to move to Johnson City, Tenn., and set up crack cocaine networks," Sullivan said.

Many of the couriers were paid in crack cocaine. Last year, Brooklyn, N.Y., intelligence officers told Johnson that cocaine and marijuana trafficking rings often start in Alamance County and come up north. Jones said that the drug trafficking problem has put the county on the map for many jurisdictions across the nation.

"It ought to be upsetting when DEA agents in El Paso, Texas, know where Alamance County in North Carolina is," Jones said. "We've had too many people here with their heads in the sand for too long, and that's why we've become a hub," Johnson said.

Johnson cited Alamance County's location along two major trafficking corridors and the Hispanic population as part of the problem. The sheriff said agencies around North Carolina identify Alamance County as being one of the biggest drug counties.

Guilford County Sheriff BJ Barnes said that along his county's stretch of I-40, vice detectives arrest drug traffickers coming and going from Alamance County to Texas, Florida and New York.

"Basically, they are coming in because Alamance County is a transition point for them," Barnes said. "( Drug traffickers ) will repackage the drugs here. It's a good central area to come into and out of quickly. Then they supply to other places."

Barnes said sheriff 's departments that don't have the manpower and resources to cover their territory make it easier for drug trafficking. Johnson says as much as 80 percent of the crime in the county is in some way tied to the drug trade.


http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v07/n088/a09.html