Six people nabbed, more arrests forthcoming
The presence of a large number of various law enforcement agencies, their vehicles’ flashing blue lights, and the closings of numerous businesses last week caught the attention of Putnam County residents and piqued their curiosity, according to overheard conversations and social media comments.
And true to their nature, in addition to the fact that the suspects broke the law, Putnam’s Sheriff Howard Sills and Lieutenant Harry Luke expressed concern about the effects on society.
Raids conducted for illegal THC
The sheriff’s offices of Putnam, Jasper, and Jones counties executed search and arrest warrants from Jan. 10-11 at 32 different business locations throughout their respective communities.
Approximately a dozen search warrants were carried out in Jasper and Putnam counties simultaneously on Wednesday morning, according to Sills.
The raids were jointly carried out by law enforcement officers from Putnam, Jones, Jasper, and Morgan counties sheriff’s offices, Eatonton Police Department, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI), Georgia Lottery Corporation’s Coin Operated Amusement Machines (COAM), and the U.S. Department of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).
Because they were attempting to raid the businesses simultaneously to prevent other similar businesses from being tipped they might be coming.
Sills said it could not have been done without all of the agencies working together.
The raids were a culmination of a joint investigation conducted by the three sheriff’s offices that began in June 2023. Since that time, undercover sheriff’s deputies and personnel had purchased illegal drugs at various businesses in the three counties, he said.
The majority of the illegal drugs purchased during the investigation were vape products containing illegal amounts of THC.
Products containing THC of no more than .3% are legal in Georgia. The people being arrested in the raid were selling THC vape products that ranged between 2% and 16% Delta-9 THC. They are being charged with Violation of the Georgia Controlled Substance Act (VGCSA) Sale of Schedule 1 Drugs, Sills said.
Raids conducted for illegal gambling machines
Undercover officers also gambled on Coin Operated Amusement Machines (COAMs) at many of the locations.
Class B COAMs, which are a game of chance that resemble slot machines, are legal in Georgia as long as the winnings are store credit or credit for other Lottery games.
However, the ones in the businesses subject to the raids were paying out cash winnings. All COAMs are regulated by the Georgia Lottery, with a percentage of the revenues being kept by the business and a percentage going to the Lottery for its education grants and programs.
The raids yielded an undisclosed amount of cash, the majority of which was believed by authorities to be money set aside as payout to winners who played the games, and that is a felonious crime, Sills said.
During one of the raids in a store on West Marion Street in downtown Eatonton, Eatonton Police Chief Howell Cardwell and several of his officers discovered a backroom full of COAMs.
“They had couches, it was like being in Vegas,” Lt. Luke said. “It was nothing uncommon to walk in there, grab a beer out of the cooler, and sit down and start playing these games. And the free beer has you putting more and more money in the machine until you lose it all.”
Expounding on the real crime
Sheriff Sills and Lt. Luke had a lot to say in response to people who commented on social media that the law enforcement agencies should be spending their time on “bigger” crimes other than “a little marijuana and gambling.”
“I realize these people may not understand math and the difference between three-tenths of a percent and 10 percent, but teenagers are ending up in the hospital or overdosing as a result of vapes or edibles,” Sills said, referencing a study by the National Institute of Health’s National Institute on Drug Abuse, December 2023.
While some of the vape products purchased undercover locally and seized in the raids contained 16%, Luke said the majority of them had 2.1%, “which is still 20 times stronger than the legal limit.”
The vape products are not being regulated or tested. The ones purchased and confiscated locally had a “California Pharmaceutical Marijuana” stamp on the side of the box.
“They want you to think it’s pharmaceutical-grade marijuana so it’s the best you can get,” Luke said. “But the big letters on the box say, ‘This is not an FDA-approved product.’ The weed we buy off the street isn’t as high-level THC as the vapes we buy at the stores.”
Like his boss, Luke also expressed concern for the effects of vaping on teenagers. He said the sheriff’s office is called out to the high school two to three times a week in regards to students vaping. The legal age to purchase vape products is 21, he said, “and when we sent underage people into these stores to purchase it undercover for us, nobody carded anybody.”
Noting that vape usage is difficult to detect because there’s no odor when it’s smoked, like marijuana has, Luke, said the students they are called to the school for are usually caught because they are so high they can’t even walk.
He also talked about the severe lung damage caused by vaping that teens are susceptible to, called “popcorn lungs.” He said the GBI laboratory technician who tests the vapes told him “The THC is one thing, but the heavy metals put in it for the flavoring is worse.”
Looking into the bags of vape boxes on his desk, Luke rattled off the names of flavors: mango, sour tangerine, PB&J, wedding cake, Girl Scout cookie, and pina colada.
“Those are made with heavy metals; you might as well be smoking a Glade Air Freshener because it’s the same ingredient,” he said. “So, you’re ingesting into your body a Glade Air Freshener.”
Regarding the COAMs, Sills noted that most of the owners of the businesses were paying their employees by cash, “which means no Social Security is being withheld, no taxes are being withheld and no taxes are being paid.”
He said most of the business owners are foreign nationals, which isn’t bad if they’re legal and following the law in their operations.
He said one of those arrested in Putnam County had been apprehended by U.S. Immigration Customs and Enforcement officials on the Mexican border in July 2023. Sills said the man gave I.C.E. officials an address in Boca Raton, Florida, that he was headed to.
“And they issued him a citation to appear in immigration court in 2025 and gave him a $1,000 debit card,” Sills said. “How does a man from West Africa who says he lives in Boca Raton, Fla., end up sleeping on a mattress in a business in Putnam County and running an illegal business? And how does he bond out with a grocery bag full of $10,000 in cash? There are certain elements of our society getting rich by breaking the law and by poisoning the rest of society. And as long as I’m sheriff, I’m going to enforce the law here and arrest them.”
Businesses raided and suspects arrested
In Putnam County, businesses raided include Red’s Minit Mart, 820 Oak St.; Step In Food Mart, 105 Gray Rd.; Express, 811 Oak St.; CBD Lake Country/AMS Medical Supply, 665-C Old Phoenix Rd.; Oconee Tobacco, 1027 Greensboro Rd.; Kwik Stop No. 4, 406 Pea Ridge Rd.; Cloud 9 Factory, 899 Harmony Rd.; Shell, 204 E. Sumter St.; Eatonton Travel Center, 100 Sara Lee Dr.; Discount Tobacco, 124 N. Jefferson Ave.; Milledgeville Food Mart, 101 Mays Rd.; Smoke Studio, 104 W. Marion St.; Long Shoals Convenience Store, 1093 Sparta Hwy.
Six people have been arrested so far in Putnam County, all on various counts of VGCSA Sale of a Schedule I or II Controlled Substance – THC Delta 9 vape: Ryan Winfield, 45, of Pearl Moon Dr., Eatonton; Elkhalil Habbott, 26, of Prairie Pass, Evans; Amro Ablan, 38, of Prairie Pass, Evans; Kara Lynn Fuller, 50, of Pearl Moon Dr.; Daniel Droltz, 38, of Long Shoals Rd.; and Lindsey Walker, 29, of Hilliar St., Union Point.
Tuesday, Sills and Luke both said that more warrants were being served and more arrests were pending.