The Associated Press
COLUMBIA, S.C. — Police raids in the Upstate rounded up 18 people indicted last month on charges of trafficking cocaine, marijuana and a particularly dangerous form of methamphetamine, the attorney general’s office announced Monday.
A state grand jury indicted 23 people Aug. 8 on a total of 63 charges, which could result in almost $4 million in combined fines and sentences nearing 1,300 combined years in prison. State and local law enforcement conducted the raids between Aug. 28 and Sept. 4. Five of those indicted remain fugitives, Attorney General Henry McMaster said.
According to the indictments, drug busts across the Upstate between January 2006 to May 2007 led to the seizure of more than 11 pounds of cocaine, 433 pounds of marijuana and 11 pounds of meth “ice,” a pure, professionally manufactured form of the drug.
“Ice” is often produced in foreign countries and smuggled into the United States, McMaster said.
“Meth is the single largest and fastest growing drug threat facing our state,” he said. “This is a significant meth bust, but it is only a single battle in an ongoing war against this dangerous drug.”