Mr. PONDER. Very few; extremely few. We were disappointed for the past 2 or 3 years, in fact, that the number of cases that we referred to them to linger on and on under close scrutiny and hearings and so forth. But we believe that things have changed in the past few months, and we see more positive actions being taken.

Mr. COUGHLIN. I know it is a problem we have in my State of Pennsylvania. It has been very difficult to get the medical licensing boards to take appropriate action even when very serious cases of drug maldistribution occurred.

Mr. WOLFF. If the gentleman would yield, we had a doctor in the District of Columbia whose license was lifted, and he moved to my State of New York and his license has been granted in the State of New York. He has been found guilty in an action that involved him in thousands of prescriptions.

Mr. COUGHLIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I have one further question, in terms of the drug fighting capabilities of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. You have no marine capability or no vessel capability in terms of investigation or interdiction of supplies coming in by ship; is that correct?

Mr. PONDER. That is correct.

Mr. COUGHLIN. You work mainly with the Coast Guard or with the DEA in terms of that kind of an effort?

Mr. PONDER. We work closely with both of those, plus we do have State agencies here in Georgia which provide our capability with regard to helicopters and boats, principally the department of natural resources who have personnel along the coast. But it is true that we as an agency do not have either capability.

We also have the Georgia State Patrol with aircraft. And we have access to those. But generally speaking, those are used only on major cases and where we identify a real need for that type of support.

Mr. COUGHLIN. Does the department of natural resources, do you know, provide any routine patrolling in the drug area?

Mr. PONDER. No; not by the State. No, sir, not by the State.

Mr. COUGHLIN. Are there areas in terms of cooperation with the Coast Guard, the Customs Service, and the DEA where you would have any suggestion to us as to how the cooperation could be improved or the service to you could be improved?

Mr. PONDER. We believe that with regard to DEA which has been outstanding in providing training for our local violators squads narcotic agents and in providing other assistance whenever called upon. We know from experience that their manpower is extremely thin in the State of Georgia and DEA is unable to provide much manpower support. And we could like to see that increased.

The Coast Guard and Customs are people excellent to work with, and we are not aware of any need to expand the material or equipment they are working with. But from the investigative standpoint, we would certainly like to see more manpower go into the battle against drugs. Mr. COUGHLIN. And when you say "more manpower." more manpower in DEA or Coast Guard or in what? Any particular area?

Mr. PONDER. To assist us in the major cases. For example, we feel that DEA has no business trying to help local departments in street-level drug cases. That is a State responsibility. But when we have informa

tion that a mother ship may be enroute to the Georgia coast, and we don't know where, or when we have informant information an airplane has left South America and may land in Florida or in Georgia, we would like DEA help in trying to confirm our information in trying to track the boat or plane through various means that are available. We have been successful in some cases in pinpointing exactly where this aircraft or that ship was coming into the State of Georgia. Mr. COUGHLIN. You do get that kind of information freely, information that an aircraft or ship may be coming in?

Mr. PONDER. Yes.

Mr. COUGHLIN. Do you have any figures as to how many kinds of instances that would have occurred in the past year?

Mr. PONDER. I believe that DEA will provide some data concerning the number of planes that are coming into the Southeast and the number of planes that have been crashed that they know were involved in drug cases. This data is compiled by the intelligence group in El Paso. We keep a record here of the cases we have worked on in the State.

Tom, do you recall by numbers what we have here during the last fiscal year?

Mr. MCGREEVY. Well, as far as planes go, our investigative activity would indicate that we know about approximately 50 planes a year. We don't catch 50 planes a year, but that many we know about and feel very certain about. But we really don't have any idea as to how many planes are coming in.

Mr. COUGHLIN. How about vessels?

Mr. MCGREEVY. It is a much smaller number. We are certain that this is the case.

Mr. PONDER. But in January 1979, we had the largest marihuana seizure in the history of the State, from a boat which came into Camden County. You will be going down to Brunswick next week. You will probably hear more about that particular case there. But it is a case of work entirely by the GBI with regard to infiltrating that particular smuggling organization and working right with the smugglers.

And, of course, before the case came down in Camden County, we had the assistance of any number of people. The case produced seizures of 26.1 tons of marihuana, several vehicles, and three boats. The major smuggler, the financier, was a Florida resident.

Mr. COUGHLIN. Mr. Chairman, we appreciate your taking your time to come here and testify and to share this information with us. And thank you very much.

Mr. EVANS. Thank you, Mr. Coughlin.

Mr. Ponder, I have a number of questions that I want to cover, the entire area of the trafficking situation in Georgia. One of the reasons that we came to Georgia was because we suspected an increase in the trafficking. As a result of the crackdown in Florida, as a result partially of committee activities in Florida and certain changes in the law in Florida, increased enforcement, harder enforcement, we understand that there has been some slackening of traffic in Florida.

Now, the question that I have is: Is this traffic moving into Georgia? Are we seeing an increase in your opinion in the trafficking in the Georgia area?

Mr. PONDER. Yes, sir.

Mr. EVANS. How would you describe that increase as far as quantity?

Mr. PONDER. We don't know how to judge the number of additional airplanes and ships except by the cases that we have worked. Our major cases have involved people from Florida.

Now, there must be a reason why they chose to come up to Georgia because Florida is really closer to the marihuana-producing countries. So that is an indication that something is happening when the major smugglers that we encounter are from out of State.

In other cases that we have worked, in which we have seized airplanes on local strips here in Georgia, we have found many of the smugglers are not Georgia people, but are from other parts of the United States.

There is just no doubt that we have seen an increase in the amount of drug activity, particularly in smuggling activity.

As far as the use of drugs in this State, we hear from local authorities, "Please send us some undercover people; we have a tremendous problem in our locality. We need some help." That type of a request has remained steady for the past several years. In fact, we get more of these requests than we can handle. And so there is just no indication from any level there has been a reduction. It is just to the contrary.

Mr. EVANS. All right; I believe you said you had 38 people directly involved in the drug area.

Mr. PONDER. Undercover operatives, yes, sir. They are called narcotic agents. They are generally young people who can fit in with all types of individuals throughout the State.

Mr. EVANS. Now, what type of budget do we have for our drug effort as far as the State of Georgia is concerned, approximately? Mr. PONDER. Well, we have the 38 narcotic agents, and we have 17 special agents that are assigned exclusively to drugs. And I don't have that dollar figure in front of me. The budget for our investigative division runs about $5.6 million. Since two-thirds of our people work other than drug cases, the GBI spends around $1.8 million a year in our drug effort. It will be considerably more in fiscal year 1981.

Mr. EVANS. Could we safely say it is infinitesimal as compared to the amount of money available to the drug traffickers?

Mr. PONDER. Absolutely.

Mr. EVANS. Certain information has come to us through various means of the complicated electronic equipment that is available to the drug traffickers, specifically DC-6 airplanes, sophisticated electronic equipment that would tip off an automobile or person in a remote area that an automobile was coming into the area, say if that automobile or that person was waiting for a plane to land. Are you finding that? Have you been able to interdict any such equipment? Do you think that such equipment is available to the traffickers?

Mr. PONDER. Absolutely.

Mr. EVANS. Do you have any such equipment available other than EPIC? And this is a means of communication, isn't it?

Mr. PONDER. Well, EPIC is, of course, designed to provide dissemination of intelligence information. The equipment that we are talking

about here is all very technical equipment, radio equipment and what have you. For example, we had a large seizure in Atlanta, and the only thing the smuggler had in the room from which he was operating was a cot, a calculator, and a radio on which he could monitor the GBI frequency. Those were the only three pieces of equipment he had.

And the reason that we were successful in breaking up that ring was because we were using mobile telephones in our cars, so that he could not monitor our conversations.

Mr. EVANS. Now, I am aware there is a great deal of organization that goes into a smuggling operation from South America into Georgia, Florida, Louisiana, in that there are a number of people involved. There are several questions I want to ask you about that. Have you found that the traditional organized crime is involved in any of the trafficking in the State of Georgia so far as you know? Mr. PONDER. Yes. We have found organized crime ties in some of the cases that we have had in Georgia.

Mr. EVANS. And I assume that there is a lot of it that is not connected; is that correct?

Mr. PONDER. Oh, absolutely. When we speak of drugs, I think we must keep in mind two separate and distinct-well, three separate and distinct-avenues. One, we talked about the medical profession. Two, we talk about the local violators. And third is the smuggling and drug trafficking. And that is where we would find organized crime ties in this larger operation of getting the drugs into this country. Mr. EVANS. Because of the amount of money that we are talking about in the drug traffic and referring to a recent charge that was made against a former State senator, I have to ask if you are aware or suspicious either now or in the past of involvement by perhaps some law enforcement in helping, assisting, or covering up the trafficking? Mr. PONDER. We have had very few cases in which law enforcement personnel were involved, but there have been some.

Mr. EVANS. Do you think that you are working out of that as far as the State of Georgia is concerned? Do you think we are moving out of that?

Mr. PONDER. I would certainly hope so. The mere fact that a lot of publicity is given to one of these situations must have an impact. And, of course, Georgia has moved, we think, very rapidly in the past few years in recruiting better qualified law enforcement people. They are getting better training. So we think we have moved real fast in that area.

Mr. EVANS. Of course, when you are talking about some of our law enforcement, you are talking about elected officials, and then you are not recruiting. And that is some of the reference I am making now.

Mr. PONDER. That is true, sheriffs are elected, but by the same token, Georgia, for the first time, let's say 2 years ago, has now offered and mandated training for some of those elected law enforcement officials who now at least get basic law enforcement training.

Mr. EVANS. I see. Do you have any idea of what we are talking about in terms of dollars, ballpark figure as far as the value, street value, of the trafficking in Georgia?

Mr. PONDER. The Organized Crime Prevention Council, which is a group made up of law enforcement people here in the State, has esti

mated that drug trafficking is close to a $3 billion a year operation. Mr. EVANS. $3 billion?

Mr. PONDER. Yes, sir.

Mr. EVANS. That is about the size of the State budget, isn't it?

Mr. PONDER. Yes, sir.

Mr. EVANS. What are we talking about as far as traffic through Georgia, drugs coming out of Florida or loadouts here and then trucks or whatever taking the drugs to other points? What are we talking about in Georgia as a transshipment point for narcotics? Do you have any idea what percentage of drugs that are brought into the State of Georgia from South America, Latin America, are actually being consumed here?

Mr. PONDER. No. We don't know about the volume being consumed. But we do know, in these major cases that we have alluded to that the drugs are being transshipped through Georgia to other States. In fact, we have seized the vehicles and we have arrested people from as far away as Michigan and Massachusetts. So we know that when we have a ship like the one that came in Camden County, where trucks were there waiting to get their part of the shipment, they were taking the drugs places other than in the State of Georgia. We don't know just what type of volume we are talking about.

Mr. EVANS. Mr. Ponder, we don't have any law on the books yet which would allow the money that is recovered by seizures of airplanes or other means of conveyance to be put directly back into the drug effort, do we?

Mr. PONDER. Last year, the General Assembly of Georgia did amend the State law where now we can seize money. I don't know if we have had a case where we have gone to court with this. We have been fighting for several years in the courts on cases where we did seize money for gambling and drugs and so forth. And the bad guys are trying to get it back. But last year, the general assembly did amend the law to give us the power to seize money in connection with drugs.

As you know, at the present time, if we seize an airplane or vehicles in a particular county, that county can dispose of this equipment, and the money goes right into the county treasury. And some of the counties have made out very well on these drug cases.

Mr. EVANS. But that is not directly put back into the drug effort, is it?

Mr. PONDER. No, sir, it is not.

Mr. EVANS. It just goes into the budget?

Mr. PONDER. Operating budget.

Mr. EVANS. And you get your money through the appropriation process?

Mr. PONDER. That is correct.

Mr. EVANS. Now, you mentioned the legislation before I asked you the question. I want to follow up. You talked about the courts. What is your feeling about the process once you make your case or once the State officials or the local officials make the case? What are we seeing in our court system about the processing of these cases?

And to be specific, I have heard and seen backlog of cases which results in a number of valid cases at the time they are made being nolle prossed or not prosecuted. Do you see this as being a problem in the drug effort?