4 GEORGIANS HELD IN INTERNATIONAL DRUG PLOT, COPS SAY

Four southeast Georgia residents are among 10 people charged in an
operation that allegedly funneled marijuana into two coastal Georgia
counties since 1997.

The marijuana was smuggled from Jamaica to California, then shipped
to Glynn and McIntosh counties, authorities said Thursday as federal
drug and money laundering indictments were unsealed. An estimated
$400,000 in drug money was laundered during the operation.

The drug often was concealed in packages sealed in multiple layers of
plastic wrap and shipped via the U.S. Postal Service and private
commercial delivery services, according to the indictments in U.S.
District Court in Savannah.

A two-year federal, state and local investigation began in Brunswick
when police intercepted a package of marijuana sent to a fictitious
person at a vacant house, authorities said.

"We've definitely stopped one of the major supplies of marijuana into
Glynn and McIntosh counties," said Capt. Ray Starling, commander of
the joint Glynn County-Brunswick police narcotics unit.

Starling said the arrests began about four weeks ago in California.
Among those charged were Penny Laurice Hunter, 34, and Dawayne
Lashone Heidt, 26, both of Brunswick; and Jamie Lee Alston, 28, and
Christopher Adam Alston, 29, of Crescent in McIntosh County.

Previously arrested were Kenya Latrelle Hollins, 26, of Mobile, and
California residents Jason Merrill Brown, 26, Ralph Dean McMorris,
54, Angela Renee Phillips, 30, and former Brunswick resident Jeffrey
Allen Hazzard, 33, who also was known as Timothy Pouncey.

A Jamaican national, Patrick Donohue Walker, 37, who had been living
in California, is a fugitive in the case, Starling said.

Coastal Georgia has had a long association with contraband, but
previously the illicit goods have arrived over water, from rumrunners
bringing in cases of alcohol during Prohibition to shrimpers hauling
holds laden with marijuana during the 1970s.

I-95, which runs through the six coastal counties, is also a
notorious route for East Coast drug couriers.