$1M in cocaine never makes it to street

FLINT - Like clockwork, at the beginning of each month, the cocaine would arrive, in the amount of 10 pounds or more.

"It was a regular delivery on a monthly basis, like people getting their Social Security checks," Genesee County Sheriff Robert J. Pickell said Thursday during a news conference.

On Wednesday, officers of the sheriff's "Posse," a multi-jurisdictional drug enforcement unit, arrested a 28-year-old Flint man - whom Pickell described as the ringleader - and two men from Georgia, ages 44 and 43, who had a total of about 10 pounds of pure cocaine.

"This is no nickel-dime dealer," Pickell said. "This is a sophisticated, multi-state distribution drug ring with links from Flint to Phoenix, Houston and Ohio. ... They had false IDs and very legitimate-looking documents."

Turned into crack, Pickell said, the cocaine would have a retail street value of $1 million.

He said his officers contacted federal authorities Wednesday, informing them of the arrests, and he said his officers would move to seize bank accounts and property as well as the vehicles and $3,000 or more taken from the suspects.

He said the ringleader owned houses and property in Flint, Swartz Creek, Davison and Mundy Township.

This ringleader, a Flint man with a criminal record that included a stint in state prison for possession of more than 50 grams of cocaine and for marijuana distribution, has been a target of the Posse for more than a year. A person whom Pickell described as "an undercover agent" of the Posse had befriended the suspect in the past.

The suspect was a big enough drug dealer and distributor that he entrusted the Posse's agent with as much as a pound of cocaine in the past, the sheriff said.

The investigation came to a head Wednesday when officers of the Posse watched the suspect drive to an address in Grand Blanc Township and meet with the two Georgia men, who are alleged to have brought the cocaine to the Flint area from Arizona.

There the Flint suspect took a portion of the cocaine - about 3 1/2 pounds - and drove to an apartment in Davison Township to test its purity. In the meantime, the two George men took the rest of the cocaine and eventually started on their way south on U.S. 23 for Ohio.

Uniformed police officers arrested them as they drove into Livingston County, while the Flint man was arrested in the Davison area.

The Flint man was sentenced to a minimum of 10 years in prison in 1999, but he was released on parole in 2004. A spokesman for the state Department of Corrections said that happened after the state Legislature changed the law that had required mandatory sentences for drug dealers, allowing parole for offenders such as the Flint suspect, even though he hadn't served his minimum sentence.

The Georgia suspects also had previous criminal convictions.

Pickell said his officers would seek warrants from the Genesee County prosecutor's office charging the three men with conspiracy to delivery drugs, possession with intent to deliver drugs and drug delivery.

"This investigation is just starting," Pickell said.