AGENTS SCOUR VIRGINIA HILLS FOR MOONSHINE STILL

ROCKY MOUNT, Va. (Reuters) - State liquor agents searched the hills of
rural southwest Virginia Thursday for an illegal still believed to be the
source of the largest seizure of moonshine whiskey in more than 20 years,
officials said.

Agents with the state's Whiskey Still Task Force, based in tiny Rocky Mount
- -- the reputed moonshine capital of the world -- seized 3,524 gallons of
homemade whiskey in a raid earlier this week. The moonshine was valued at
$88,100, or $25 a gallon.

``The moonshine business continues to operate and produce large volumes of
product in Virginia, and that is not small stills for personal
consumption,'' state Alcohol Beverage Control spokeswoman Jennifer
Farinholt said. ``This is basically a rural organized crime.''

Agents said Stewart Lynn Adkins, 42, was arrested Monday as he loaded 980
gallons of moonshine into a tobacco barn in Sago, about 30 miles southeast
of Roanoke. The agents said they also found 2,544 gallons of hooch, some
still warm from the still, on his farm in nearby Franklin.

All but a few jugs kept for evidence were poured out.

Adkins, who spent 45 days in jail in 1992 for transporting moonshine
whiskey, had been under surveillance for weeks, Farinholt said. He was
charged with possessing and transporting 980 gallons of untaxed whiskey
after this week's raid.

Since 1996, Alcohol Beverage Control agents have destroyed stills capable
of producing an estimated 379,200 gallons a year of moonshine valued at
about $9.5 million.

^REUTERS@