Four Men Arrested In Georgia While Attempting To Move Counterfeit Pill Operation

The seized pill press
Source: Facebook page of Walton County Sheriff’s Office

According to CBS 46, a sheriff’s deputy driving down a rural road in Walton County stopped four young men from setting up their counterfeit pill operation before they even had a chance to unload the truck. The deputy spotted a U-Haul truck and a trailer along with another car backed into a wooded section of Jacks Creek Road. When the deputy approached the group, they attempted to flee, but quickly stopped and were arrested. Investigators said the four suspects were moving their counterfeit pill operation to an abandoned building in the woods and planned to use a generator to power it.

Walton County Sheriff’s deputies arrested Austin Marshall, Jakob Sullins, Nicholas Felker, and Timothy Ballard. Inside the U-Haul truck, deputies found a pill press capable of producing 16,000 pills per hour, several thousand already produced pills and enough chemicals to produce another 50,000. Major Damien Mercer said the suspects are, “capable of producing a lot of pills for a lot of profit, do a lot of damage to a lot of people’s lives.” Testing is underway to confirm what was used to make the fake pills.

Fox 5 Atlanta spoke with Cindy Lowe. She noticed activity up the road the night before only to wake up to heavier police presence in the morning. “This morning again they had the road blocked off this time from my mailbox all the way up to Old Good Hope Road,” Lowe said. The sheriff determined that it was best to process the evidence at the scene where it was to ensure there was no threat to public safety. Walton County Sheriff Joe Chapman told Fox 5 Atlanta that he thinks the men wanted to use a barn. “A lot of people are coming from surrounding counties thinking that we are a rural county and they aren’t going to get caught, but they are mistaken if they believe that,” said Chapman.