POLICE FIND $9.3 MILLION IN DRUGS IN ONION CARGO

Vidalia Processing Plant Workers Spot Travel Bags With Cocaine, Heroin In
Shipment From Peru

VIDALIA - U.S. Customs and GBI agents are backtracking a shipment of onions
from Peru in which workers at a processing plant found $9.3 million in
cocaine and heroin.

Toombs County Sheriff Alvie Kight Jr. said workers at R.T. Stanley Farms
were unloading a tractor-trailer load of onions Friday when they spotted
two travel bags. Fearing the bags could contain bombs, workers notified
Vidalia police. Officers found 29 kilos of cocaine and eight kilos of
heroin inside the bags.

Agents estimated the street value of the heroin to be $6.4 million and the
cocaine to be $2.9 million. The heroin seizure is thought to be the largest
ever in Georgia, but that still is being researched, said Jeff Evans,
assistant special agent in charge of the GBI Regional Drug Enforcement
office in Savannah.

Evans said the investigation has developed promising leads, but no arrests
have been made. He also said smuggling drugs into the country in
agriculture shipments is a common practice.

During the off-season, Vidalia onion packers process other onions for
commercial sale. Kight said the shipment came through the Charleston, S.C.,
port, and most likely that's where the bags were meant to be picked up.

"The drugs weren't supposed to be here," said Kight. "Customs feels like it
was supposed to be taken off at the port."

Kight said the seizure is by far the largest ever in Toombs County.

Vidalia police Lt. Kevin Collins was one of the first officers on the
scene. He said a tear in one of the bags showed the contents, and he
immediately knew it wasn't a bomb. The bags were located at the rear of the
truck near the door. The onions were loaded on the trailer box in Peru,
then a truck picked up the trailer at the port. The doors are locked and
opened only for customs inspections, Collins said.

Heroin distribution is virtually unheard of in rural Georgia, another
reason authorities believe the drugs were intended to go somewhere else.

The drugs were turned over to U.S. Customs.

The cocaine was immediately visible in the bags, but the heroin was hidden
in two car batteries. Kight said the batteries in the bags were a mystery
at first, but X-rays showed something in the bottom of the batteries that
turned out to be heroin. Heroin also was sewn in the lining of bicycle
shorts in the bags.

"Someone could have just put the shorts on and walked away," said Kight.

The sheriff was particularly grateful for the actions of the processing
plant workers because the drugs might have ended up in the hands of someone
with other ideas, and the Vidalia area could have seen an unprecedented
wave of cocaine and heroin abuse.

"We want to praise Stanley Farms for doing the right thing," he said.

A spokeswoman at the onion-processing plant declined to comment.