Two Georgia men, apparently trying to move large quantities of methamphetamine through Sampson County, were apprehended earlier this month during a routine traffic stop and remain in jail today under separate $1.5 million bonds.
Jamal Albert Jr., 35, of Savannah, Ga., and a passenger in his vehicle, Robert Parker, 42, also of Savannah, face two felony counts each of trafficking in meth.
Albert also is charged with felony maintaining a vehicle for the sale of a controlled substance and possession of drug paraphernalia. Parker faces an additional charge of possession of drug paraphernalia.
The pair were arrested Saturday, Aug. 15, around 1 a.m. when members of the Sampson County Sheriff’s Office Interdiction Team stopped Albert for a speeding violation as he traveled U.S. Highway 13 near Sunny Lane.
Chief Deputy Marcus Smith said during the traffic stop a K-9 was used and detected what he called “the presence of narcotics,” providing the probable cause needed to search the vehicle.
Found inside the car during the search, Smith said, were 4,642 grams, or 4.6 kilos, of an illegal drug suspected to be methamphetamine.
Albert and his passenger, Parker, were immediately taken into custody and charged. They were later transported to the Sampson County Magistrate’s Office, where Magistrate K. Ellis leveled a $1.5 million secured bond against each suspect.
The arrest, made along Hwy. 13, is one of many such arrests that Interdiction Team deputies have made over the course of the last year along that stretch of highway as well as Interstate 40 through Sampson County.
Both, Smith said, are major drug highways and two of three major roads that create the “drug triangle.” I-95, he said, is the third major highway in that triangle.
The chief deputy pointed to that triangle as one of the reasons the Sheriff’s CID is so vital.
“They play a major role in combating this problem of people from other states carrying drugs and money from north to south,” Smith stressed.
And, while meth labs and locally-produced methamphetamine have become less and less of a problem in Sampson County, the transport of it along those major highways continues to be a thorn in the side of law enforcement.
“Running dope and money along those highways, north to south, is a big problem. The problem isn’t the labs anymore. The laws are so tough, drug dealers had to change their game plan.”
CID traffic stops, he said, play a big role in putting the brakes on some of that transport.
“The Sampson County Sheriff’s Office Criminal Interdiction Team continues to work proactively to identify and disrupt the transportation and distribution of illegal narcotics throughout Sampson County,” Smith asserted.