They’ve confiscated cocaine, methamphetamine and marijuana with a street value of $811,193,200, seized more than $14 million in cash and made nearly 1,000 arrests just in the past five years.

All six of them. Yes, that’s $811 million, with a capital “M.”

They sometimes work alone and sometimes with local, state and federal law enforcement agencies. They are the members of Fayette Sheriff’s Drug Task Force, comprised of five sheriff’s deputies and a Tyrone police officer. And though the sale of cocaine, methamphetamine and marijuana has increased exponentially since the task force was initiated in 1989, the unit has the same number of agents today as when it first began.

“The amount of dope you see today is nothing like what we saw in 1989-1992,” said task force commander, Capt. Mike Pruitt. “The change since then is astronomical. A long way from what it was like then, Atlanta has become the hub for the Southeast and the Eastern seaboard, with drugs transported here from the Southwest states by Mexican drug cartels and is being shipped from metro Atlanta to points north and south to places like New York, Chicago, Orlando and Miami and the Carolinas.”

The history of the influx of drugs into the Atlanta area mirrors the rise of Atlanta as the transportation crossroads of the Southeast and one of the premier transportation hubs of the United States.

An average of 200 kilos (one kilogram equals 2.2 pounds) enters the Atlanta area every other week, said Pruitt. Those shipments often arrive with the mass of truck traffic that passes through the metro area.

Cartels ship the drugs here from California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas because the mark-up in the East is so much higher, about four to one, Pruitt said. The cartels set up cells in metro Atlanta and staff those operations with people that live here, people with children that attend schools here, he said.

The task force works both inside and outside Fayette County. Agents made 533 drug-related arrests in Fayette County during the 2001-2005 period and 436 outside the county, with some seizures resulting in multiple arrests.

The connection to the arrests inside and outside the county, said Pruitt, directly relates to the flow of drugs.

Ninety percent of those arrested in Fayette obtain their drugs outside the county, he explained. That reality necessarily takes task force agents outside the county and often in concert with state and federal drug enforcement agencies.

“Everything we do starts in Fayette County. And when we get information that tips us off, we target the big source to cut off the flow. A part of that flow comes right back to Fayette County unless it’s stopped at the source,” Pruitt said. “We could arrest street dealers all day long and not make a dent in the problem.”

The drugs and cash seized then becomes a part of the local task force totals. The county’s portion of the seized cash is federal money distributed to the county.

Federal requirements mandate that money distributed to local law enforcement must be used to enhance that agency through the purchase of various types of related equipment and supplies and training.

Though the percentages vary depending on the number of agencies participating in a particular bust, the Fayette County task force receives approximately 20-25 percent of the total seizure, Pruitt said.

Those monies are awarded to Sheriff’s Office by the federal Drug Enforcement Association (DEA) Forfeiture Asset Division. And the amount of drugs and cash seized between 2001 and 2005 is staggering.

Agents participated in the seizure of 1,940 kilos (about 2.1 tons) of cocaine, 35,548 pounds of marijuana and 230 pounds of methamphetamine during the period.

A single kilo of cocaine currently sells for approximately $24,000 while larger quantities can be purchased for $15,000-20,000, agents said.

But it is the street value, once a kilo is broken down and sold by the gram that the lure of easy profit multiplies astronomically.

Agents said a typical kilo of cocaine, composed of 1,000 grams or 2.2 pounds, has an 80 percent purity content. But once the kilo is purchased for distribution it is “stepped on” or “cut” with a product such as baking soda to maintain the look of the drug while reducing the actual amount of the drug in the mixture, thus providing even more cocaine for further mixing, thus providing even more product for sale and more profit to be had, they said.

So when cut once, a 1,000-gram kilo becomes 2,000 grams, effectively doubling the product and reducing the cocaine content to 40 percent purity.

Once sold, the process is usually repeated another time, now producing 4,000 grams with 20 percent purity. At that point, agents said, the product is ready for purchase on the street.

Based on an approximate street price of $100 per gram, a kilo that initially sold for $20,000 at a bulk rate is transformed into $400,000 worth of product at the street level.

The lure of heavy profits to those intent on benefitting from such underground commerce is impossible to underestimate, said Pruitt.

The already astronomical price per kilo of the 1,940 kilos seized during the past five years becomes nearly incalculable once cut for market. Those kilos carry a retail value on the street estimated at $776 million.

While the quantity of methamphetamine seized is substantially smaller, 230 pounds since 2001, the profit margin is still nearly beyond belief, said Pruitt.

Normally selling for $10,000 to $11,000 per pound and fetching $15,000 to $16,000 in a much more concentrated form called ice, the 230 pounds of methamphetamine seized during the same period carries a per pound street value, once “cut” using the same process as cocaine, of $150,000 to $200,000.

That translates into as much as $3,200,000 in consumable product.

And though not nearly as lucrative, the price and profits from the 35,548 pounds of marijuana seized since 2001 is staggering. Not figured for sale after being broken into ounces, the per pound price alone will generate $31,993,200 based on an $800 to $900 price tag for a product of average potency, he said.

Another aspect of the seizures, the confiscation of cash during drug busts, is indicative of the politics of contraband and the lure of easy money. In total, the task force has seized $14,303,518 in the past five years.

Tyrone is currently the only municipality in Fayette County participating in the task force effort.

Fayetteville Mayor Kenneth Steele said Fayetteville participated in the task force a number of years ago but ceased that participation when budgetary needs required the officer be utilized on the street.

As for the future, Fayetteville may again contribute a member to the effort. The upcoming hire of a new police chief and other organizational considerations might compliment preliminary discussions to provide a member to the task force, a move that officers would likely be interested in, Steele said.

“I think Fayetteville will participate in the not too distant future,” Steele said.

Newly elected Peachtree City Mayor Harold Logsdon also responded to questions about Peachtree City’s past, current and future status with the task force.

“Based on the numbers you’ve given me, the Fayette County Drug Task Force has done a tremendous job for the community,” said Logsdon. “I know Peachtree City has participated on the task force in the past and this is something we certainly need to look at. I’ll be evaluating and discussing (this) with the city manager and police chief in the next couple of weeks.”

For his part as task force leader, Pruitt said the task force takes a proactive stance when it comes to tracking down drugs and attempting to stop them at the source.

“Many law enforcement agencies today are reactive to the problem. We are proactive,” said Pruitt. “It takes a lot of manpower and a lot of being away from home to do this work. But with all the stuff coming into Atlanta and knowing that some of it comes here and with some of those who live here leaving the county to get it, it means we work closely with DEA and others to keep trying to cut it off at the source.”