Submitted
A month’s long investigation by the Greenville County Drug Enforcement Unit dismantled a large and complex fentanyl/methamphetamine pill operation in the Fountain Inn/Simpsonville area.
A search warrant was served on June 23 by DEU investigators and Greenville County Sheriff’s Office SWAT at a residence at 402 New Harrison Bridge Road.
Bart McEntire, the Commander of the DEU announced the search warrant was based on a month’s long investigation where investigators learned the subjects of the investigation were distributing thousands of pressed pills into Greenville County and surrounding areas of the upstate. Most of the pills the drug gang sold were fentanyl and were being distributed under various street
Investigators developed information that the pills were being pressed at the New Harrison Bridge location and moved quickly to dismantle the operation.
Arrested were:
• Jalien “Kount” Travis White, 26, Trafficking Heroin Over 28 Grams, Possession of MDMA, Possession of a Weapon During Violent Crime.
• Christopher Slappy, 36, Trafficking Heroin Over 28 Grams, Possession of a Weapon During Violent Crime.
• Christy Michelle Washington, 40, Trafficking Heroin Over 28 Grams, Possession of MDMA, Possession of a Weapon During Violent Crime, Trafficking Crack, more than 28 grams but less than 100 grams.
• Pursia Natia Reidout, 23, Trafficking Heroin over 28 grams.
• Ebony Nichole Cunningham, 29, Trafficking Heroin Over 28 grams.
“The individuals who decide to press pills deal in death and are in my opinion despicable people,” McEntire said. “They know they are pressing pills of death but have little concern for anyone. The only concern these dealers of death have is for the color green. This is now the fourth pill press operation ran by garage chemists that the DEU has uncovered and dismantled since the first of the year,” McEntire stated.
“The spread of these pills across the county will continue to kill unwitting individuals,” said Sheriff Hobart Lewis. “Persons buying these pills for their drug use have no idea the level of fentanyl present, the mixtures used, and are in a game of roulette. I have met with the Commander of DEU and made it known that I want these pills off the street.”
Investigators found a substantial quantity of finished fentanyl tablets that weighed close to one pound, 3 ½ ounces of Ecstasy, two ounces of crack cocaine, a pound of marijuana, $7,451.00 and three firearms. Additionally 11 pounds of compression binding agent was found along with two mechanical pill presses. The mechanical pill presses are capable of pressing out hundreds of pills an hour.
“Most persons never experience any aspect of seeing the ugly truth of drug use so the understanding of law enforcement seizures and the effects of those seizures have on communities is often miscalculated,” McEntire said. “The use of powdered form of drugs (fentanyl, heroin, cocaine, ecstasy, and methamphetamine) is simply hard to place into a layman’s perspective.
“Consider the average amount of the drug being ingested by a user is 0.2 grams of the substance. Simply put, today’s actions prevented 2,900 uses of the drugs where an individual could have ingested the drugs and potentially overdosed. So was someone’s life (was) saved today – most likely,” McEntire said.