Indictments for those arrested have been handed down over the last three months. So far in the FBI's sting, around 130 people have been taken into custody by authorities, reported local ABC affiliate, WJCL.
U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia, John Horn, said the charges represent "staggering corruption within Georgia Department of Corrections institutions."
Among those arrested were two civilians, one inmate, and according to CNN, five members of an "elite squad" called the Cobra Unit, whose job ostensibly involved dismantling drug rings inside the prison system.
Comment: So instead of dismantling the drugs rings they insured that they continued.
Investigators found the accused officers had affected drug deals both inside and outside prison walls — including large quantities of cocaine and crystal meth — by exploiting the supposed impunity of their position in law enforcement. According to WJCL, the indictments state officers "agreed to wear their uniforms during the drug transports to deter law enforcement interference."
Besides illicit drugs, investigators said smuggled contraband included liquor, tobacco, and cell phones — which are then used by inmates to commit wire fraud and identity theft.
Those phones comprise "a huge challenge for law enforcement," explained special agent in charge of the Atlanta FBI office, Britt Johnson, to CNN. "After you chase down, arrest and prosecute criminals, and put them away for life, they continue to direct crime on the streets from their jail cells." He also called the ability for inmates to communicate with the world outside prison to "intimidate witnesses and prosecutors" a "breakdown of the judicial system."
After their arraignment, the arrestees were expected to be taken back into custody by the Federal Marshals to undisclosed locations in the state, pending trial.
What this case illustrates is the criminal incentive created by the war on drugs and the monopoly of power granted specifically to those tasked with carrying it out. Outlawing substances and then locking up people who choose to use those substances creates a concentrated customer base to be exploited by those in positions of authority.
If anything exposes the war on drugs as the massive failure that it is, it's the fact that police can't even keep drugs out of their own prisons.
story. My first problem, which I hope Sott.net will understand and possibly pass along to the people at the Source has to do with the source itself. I cannot trust any source which only allows comments to be made by "First" being made to sign in to Facebook, otherwise known as FED BOOK. So that right there is a Giant Red Flag. It also pricks my ears up to see that issue, which is huge in my opinion, when it's attached to a source calling itself the Free Thought Project?
Free Thought: Really? The other issue is that the supposed sources for this story involve CNN and ABC.
Back in 2013 they made it legal to use propaganda on the American People themselves. A product previously reserved to military mind control operations. These two corporations can't be trusted any more than the supposed criminals inside the prison walls they claim to be reporting on.
Even assuming that this is actually a true story it is highly unlikely that this is all that is going on. Given the status of the drugs as a source of income for the secret govcorp running our political, financial, and law enforcement/legal system, then the rather more obvious and distasteful part of this story would be that another potential source of income and "human resources" was being exploited outside of their control.
As the system is now itself entirely criminal, than it's only logical to think that the objective isn't to create a drug free incarceration facility, but rather to eliminate what the system considers competitors, and to then replace them with their own operatives.