DeKalb County authorities have charged 19 men who were allegedly part of two networks that worked together to distribute powder and crack cocaine smuggled from Mexico.
DeKalb District Attorney Robert James said the two-month-long investigation with the federal Drug Enforcement Administration focused on two groups allegedly selling drugs on south DeKalb County streets around Snapfinger, Wesley Chapel and Panola roads.
The indictment was returned Tuesday but it was immediately sealed until all 19 had been arrested. Before the indictment became public, however, some of the men had already posted $100,00 bond and were released from jail.
According to the indictment, the two organizations were headed by Shantavious Mills and Derrick Smith. The two groups did not compete with each other but instead shared merchandise and coordinated shipping and selling their products.
James said Mills and Smith were directly involved in either buying drugs from Mexico or from people who had brought already brought cocaine into the United States. James also told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that Mills and Smith worked directly with those who sold on the street.
According to the indictment, investigators were monitoring cell phone conversations during which Mills and Smith and others in the network allegedly coordinated the distribution of cocaine and discussed the arrests of some members of the operations and suspicions that law enforcement was watching them.
Most of the monitored calls, however, concerned “coordinating for the distribution of cocaine,” according to the indictment
In one conversation Mills and Drew observed that one member of their group “shouldn’t have gold teeth [and] dreads [dreadlocks]” if they were selling drugs.
On March 2, Mills and Drew discuss suspicions that the police were watching the house of one of the men indicted, Michael Lee, but they eventually concluded they didn’t think that was the case “because if they were, they would have searched the house by now.”
The next day, “Mills said if there was something wrong with Lee’s house he would have been arrested by now.”
They also warned each other about the State Patrol, according to the indictment. “Smith can be overheard talking to the driver [Monica McGregor] as the trooper attempts to make the stop,” according to a notation about a cell phone conversation on March 2. “Smith instructs her to keep going straight. ‘Take ‘em on a high speed chase.’” The indictment said the trooper eventually stopped the car and found five kilos of cocaine.
Shantavios Mills and Cornelius Fred Mills on March 15, “talk about arrests. C. Mills said he would never ride with anything on him and how state troopers are pulling everyone over. [They] talk about the police dogs and Tiny getting arrested,” according to the indictment, which refer to some people by names that don’t always match the names listed on the indictment.
The indictment recounts a conversation in which Shantavios Mills, who heads one operation with 14 of the people indicted, tells one of his lieutenants, Gregory Barber, to take care of his sick mother in the hospital and “He’ll be there for him.”
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