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Local officers make $1 million cocaine bust

By JOHN MUNFORD
jmunford@thecitizennews.com

Four Texas men attempted to conceal $1 million in cocaine — 50 kilograms, more than 20 pounds — in a shipment of mangos before they were arrested in Fairburn Wednesday by Fayette County drug agents working undercover with the Federal Drug Enforcement Agency, police said.

All four suspects were arrested but their names are not being released because the investigation is ongoing, said Lt. Col. Bruce Jordan of the Fayette County Sheriff’s Department.

“We had information that a person was coming from Texas to do a large-level drug transaction,” Jordan said.

Surveillance teams followed the chief suspect once he flew into Atlanta, tracking the van he rented to the hotel where he stayed overnight, Jordan added.

The next evening, that suspect drove to the truck stop in Fairburn off Ga. Highway 74 next to the McDonald’s, just north of the Fayette County line, Jordan said.

Agents moved in to make the arrests after the suspects began unloading the cocaine from the rental van to the tractor trailer.

The rental van took off from the truck stop parking lot, but its occupants were caught after a pursuit by the DEA agents, Jordan said.

The sheriff’s department will attempt to seize the tractor trailer, a refrigerated model, under forfeiture laws, Jordan said. Those laws allow law enforcement agencies to seize material used in the trafficking of drugs.