Authorities said a methamphetamine network run by two Georgia prison inmates included at least nine people in Chattanooga and Boaz, Ala., who now face charges in a 19-count federal indictment.
Seven of the nine charged are from Chattanooga.
In this Sept. 7, 2012, photo a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration technician holds several pounds of Mexican meth confiscated in the St. Louis area. Methamphetamine has long been a significant problem in the United States, but the DEA says the influx of meth from south of the border is offsetting any gains made against clandestine meth labs in the U.S. DEA statistics show that the Mexican cartels are making the meth more pure, creating a faster and easier high for users, and theyre selling it more cheaply in hopes of creating a new market. Seizures at the border and in several U.S. cities are up sharply. (AP Photo/Jim Salter)“The conspiracy charged here was responsible for supplying the intensely addictive and debilitating drug, methamphetamine, in Northeast Alabama for at least two years,” U.S. Attorney Joyce White Vance said in a statement on the operation. Vance thanked all participating agencies.
The federal indictment issued in June levels charges against Yesenia Montufar Martinez, 28; Miguel Manriquez, 38; Allee Thomas Walker, 37; Anthony Paul Lee, 36; Bernube Perez, 22; and Rafael Jose Castillo Morales, 27, all of Chattanooga. Federal authorities name them in a 2013-2015 conspiracy to traffic 50 grams or more of meth into Cleburne, Etowah, Marshall and DeKalb counties in Alabama. In Boaz, Jose Rolando Arroyo Balcazar, 36, and his sister, Juanna Balcazar, 28, also were charged.
Officials said Melissa Nicasio, 28, of Chattanooga, was charged with one count of conspiring with Morales to distribute 50 grams or more of meth in Etowah and DeKalb counties.
Six other defendants already are behind bars.
Thomas Watson Smith, 39, of Rome, Ga., was charged in April with one count of possession with intent to distribute at least 50 grams of meth in Cherokee County, Ala., federal officials said. Smith has pleaded guilty and faces sentencing Oct. 14.
Officials said Jose Balcazar and Manriquez communicated with each other and with people outside the prison system to traffic meth into Alabama.
Manriquez is serving a life sentence on an unrelated 2003 murder conviction while Balcazar is serving a 30-year term for a 2007 meth trafficking conviction. Both men were imprisoned in Georgia at the time.