CONVICTED DRUG DEALER: PLENTY TO GO AROUND

Big-time cocaine dealers and the narcotics officers trying to catch them
agree on one thing: Street-level drug dealers who operate the hundreds of
crack houses in Greensboro and High Point have plenty of cocaine to cook
into crack.

"You would be amazed" how much cocaine is smuggled into Guilford County,
said Rick Ball, commander of the Greensboro Police Department's vice and
narcotics division.

The amount is even more than most narcotics officers realize, said Elton
Turnbull, who authorities said was responsible for smuggling at least 500
kilograms of cocaine yearly into Greensboro since 1996. That's more than
half a ton per year.

Turnbull, who lived in Greensboro, was sentenced in April in federal court
to 29 years in prison. He is serving time in a federal prison in Virginia.
He hopes to reduce his sentence by cooperating with authorities
investigating other smugglers.

During a recent interview, Turnbull said he brought in only about 300
kilograms, or 660 pounds, a year. But he said he knew "six or seven" people
who smuggled more cocaine into Greensboro than he did.

If that's true, several tons of powder cocaine are coming into Greensboro
and High Point every year. Almost all of it is cooked into crack, Turnbull
said.

It's unclear how much cocaine authorities seize in the Greensboro area.
Federal, state and local officers often work together, and amounts
confiscated might be recorded by each law enforcement agency. The
Greensboro office of the Drug Enforcement Administration would not say how
much cocaine DEA agents have seized in the Greensboro area.

Turnbull, 34, said he bought his cocaine in Colombia and shipped it to the
Virgin Islands. He had it flown to Charlotte by commercial airliner, he
said, implying that he had inside help. He said he sold regularly to six
buyers in the Greensboro area for about $24,000 a kilo, of which $18,000
was profit.

Turnbull said he could have sold 50 kilos every 10 days -- about six times
what he said he sold on average -- if he could have gotten that much
cocaine in Colombia.

"Easily," he said. "Easily."

That information leaves Ball, the vice commander, shaking his head.

"Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of kilos," Ball said. "Sometimes I get
the feeling everybody but me is using it."