A man believed to be the mastermind behind a drug conspiracy that resulted in a local murder is now in custody after his arrest Monday in the parking lot of the Fayetteville Police Department.

Paul Anderson, also known as Glen Hamilton, was apprehended shortly before 4:30 p.m. Monday by investigators from the Fayette County Sheriff's Department just outside the police headquarters. A felony murder warrant had already been issued for him.

He is believed to have been directly involved in the murder of a man whose body was found in a burned Ford Expedition in the northern end of the county March 31, police said. Investigators believe that Anderson was at the scene and possibly in the vehicle when the victim, believed to be Adolf Stubbs, was killed.

According to Maj. Bruce Jordan, head of the Sheriff's Criminal Investigations Division, Anderson and six associates had come in a minivan to the Fayette County Jail in an attempt to secure the release of another person already behind bars in relation to this case.

"We knew they were coming and allowed them to come" visit their jailed associate, Jordan said. "We had information that led us to believe he [Anderson] was in town, in this van."

Investigators were on the alert for anyone coming to the jail on behalf of the incarcerated suspect, whose name has been withheld for the sake of the continuing investigation. "Once somebody showed up to try to get this guy out, we started scouring the town looking for the vehicle," said Jordan.

Several suspects are in custody, identified by Jordan as "peripheral players in the conspiracy." Not all seven occupants in the van were arrested.

It is believed that the group came from New York, which had already been identified as a key location in the drug ring whose operations led to the murder. It was not immediately known if the van, a rental, was driven all the way from New York or obtained locally.

This investigation has taken local law enforcement officials from New York to Orlando in their search for clues in the conspiracy.

Anderson was found just as evidence surfaced causing police to suspect that he might try to flee the country.

Fayette County officers spent the entire weekend on the lookout at Hartsfield Atlanta International Airport, checking every flight bound for London from Friday right up until Anderson's arrest. The U.S. Customs Service was extremely helpful in this regard, Jordan said, and Fayetteville police were instrumental in assisting in Anderson's capture.

One suspect remains at large, and it is believed that he has fled to Jamaica.

Jordan acknowledged that an absolutely positive identification of the victim has still not been reached, but an increasing amount of evidence makes him "85 percent sure" that it is Stubbs, a resident of Brooklyn.

"It will be our position that he was one of the main players involved in the death of Adolf Stubbs," Jordan said of Anderson. "It is our belief that he was actually there in the Expedition at the time of the murder.