US Postal Inspectors and agents from the Alabama ABC Drug Task Force swarmed a squalid efficiency apartment on the edge of the University of Alabama-Birmingham campus last week, gathering evidence and taking pictures. Inside, agents had found what they said was a synthetic marijuana manufacturing and distribution operation worth more than $4 million a year.
The small apartment had few amenities. There was an old laptop computer used to process emailed orders addressed to Ninja Foot, LLC. There was a small table crowded with US Postal Service mailers. A cabinet was packed with powdered chemicals from China. The bathroom was covered in synthetic marijuana residue, which caked the sink, floor and tub.
“It’s not sanitary by any means,” said Capt. Hal Taylor, Assistant Director of Special Operations at the Alabama ABC Drug Task Force. “There’s no OSHA regulations…. There’s no telling what damage they’re doing to their bodies by smoking this Spice.”
Lance Dyer said he knows. His teenage son, Dakota, shot himself after smoking synthetic marijuana 15 months ago. Dyer, who has now dedicated his life to eradicating operations like Ninja Foot, LLC, was invited along on the raid.
“This operation was selling two things over the internet: a synthetic marijuana called Bob’s Buds and the ingredients used to make synthetic marijuana from a website called JWHOvernight.com. It was coming to Georgia and at least 45 other states,” Dyer said. The raid on Tuesday had already sparked at least 14 investigations in Georgia, according to Dyer, including one resulting in the closure of a store selling synthetic marijuana in Columbus.
The orders were rolling in to Ninja Foot so fast that it appeared its operators had trouble keeping up, Dyer said. On the laptop confiscated from that efficiency apartment in Birmingham, there were more than 1,900 orders pending in the company’s Yahoo email inbox. Hundreds of money orders were found in the apartment worth more than $300,000. Also seized were chemicals and mixing agents worth approximately $2 million, agents said.
Authorities arrested Seth Batten, 29, whom they described as the operation’s second-in-command. They hoped to gain Batten’s help in luring the alleged kingpin, 28-year old Robert Pressler, back to Birmingham from Las Vegas, where he had been playing in a poker tournament for three weeks.
“So the idea is, hopefully, to get this guy to cooperate a little bit?” asked WSB’s Pete Combs, the only reporter allowed to accompany agents on the raid.
“Right,” answered Sgt. Paul Hayes, supervisor of the Alabama ABC Drug Task Force. “The idea is for this guy here to call the main target, just tell him something’s up and just get him to come home and get him in custody that way.”
By Sunday night, Pressler was still not in custody, Hayes said. But state and federal authorities had seized his bank accounts, said to be worth millions of dollars.
As agents were packing up and hauling off computers, cash and chemicals from the tiny apartment, neighbors, unaware that they were living in close quarters with a drug lab, were concerned about what was being left behind.
“I’m speechless. I’m concerned about the residents around them, the apartments and whatever chemicals that they’re using for our whole draining system, for our plumbing, everything,” said Misty Disko, manager of the University Place Apartments.
