Public’s help sought locating Two Operation Avalanche Suspects

The Oconee County Sheriff’s Office seeks the public’s help locating two suspects wanted on conspiracy to traffic methamphetamine charges as a part of the “Operation Avalanche” investigation, explains Captain Ken Washington of the Special Operations Division of the Oconee County Sheriff’s Office. “30-year-old Amy Deanna Cobb and 50-year-old Mickey Edward Cox have outstanding arrest warrants related to the investigation. We believe that Cobb may be in the Atlanta Metro area. She is believed to be a facilitator and one who has connections with the Mexican Cartels who are responsible for much of the methamphetamine that flowed through Oconee County during the investigation.” Last Thursday, agents from the Narcotics Unit along with investigators from the Criminal Investigations Division, the PACE team, the SWAT team and the Uniform Patrol Division along with agents from the Drug Enforcement Agency executed four high risk search warrants at four separate locations to search for individuals that have active arrest warrants pertaining to the investigation. As a result of the investigation, officers seized firearms, cash and around two pounds of additional narcotics due to the execution of the search warrants. Three individuals with warrants directly tying them to the investigation were arrested last Thursday while five others were arrested as a result of the execution of the search warrant. At a press conference Monday at the Oconee County Sheriff’s Office, deputies displayed the firearms and narcotics that were seized as part of the execution of the search warrants last Thursday. During the press conference, Oconee County Sheriff Mike Crenshaw along with Captain Washington and Lt. Jeremy Chapman of the Special Operations Division briefed the media on the investigation and where things stand right now. Sheriff Crenshaw said that the amount of weight that one distributes or traffics is important to overall jail time, especially in consideration of discussions in Columbia among the General Assembly concerning judicial reform as well as the discovery, as a result of the ongoing investigation, that over 2,000 pounds of methamphetamine was moved through Oconee County. “My message and I hope everyone’s message back to the General Assembly is that weight does matter,” says Sheriff Crenshaw. “We do need someone that is selling pounds of illegal drugs to go to prison for a very long time more so than someone that is selling a gram.” While Sheriff Crenshaw said that homegrown meth labs have seen a decrease over the past few years, the cost of purchasing Methamphetamine has dropped in price so those who are trafficking and distributing meth are selling larger and larger amounts of the drug. With the decrease in meth labs, what narcotics agents are also seeing is meth being trafficked by the drug cartels in Mexico into the United States into the Atlanta Metro area and then making its way into South Carolina, including into Oconee County. “The ‘Operation Avalanche’ case goes back into Mexico with the narcotics making its way through Atlanta and into Oconee County,” says Captain Washington. “Geographically, Oconee County is in between two hub cities, Atlanta and Charlotte. The cartel and the criminal enterprises will use that middle ground for their benefit in terms of selling drugs and making their profit.” Captain Washington also went on to say that not only did some of the over 2,000 pounds of meth that was trafficked through Oconee County makes it way to the streets here in the Golden Corner but also other places in the southeast, including North Carolina. Captain Washington said the potential street value of the over 2,000 pounds that moved through the county is close to $100 million. During the investigation, the Sheriff’s Office has been working with various local, state and federal agencies as well as the 10th Circuit Solicitors Office in a partnership that Captain Washington feels will put a dent into the trafficking of Methamphetamine in Oconee County. Sheriff Crenshaw also pointed out that there is help for those addicted to narcotics and much of that help is free through organizations such as Oconee County Vocational Rehab and Christ Central Ministries who will be operating a pilot program in the old Oconee County Detention Center. If anyone has any information on the whereabouts of Amy Deanna Cobb or Mickey Edward Cox, they should call Crimestoppers at 1-888-CRIME-SC or the Narcotics hotline of the Oconee County Sheriff’s Office at 864-638-4122. If anyone also has information related to illegal narcotics activity in Oconee County, they can call the same numbers as well.