Our first story shows just how a very small dope case can get linked to the big fellas very easily, if anyone makes a mistake or is weak in some way.
“Is everything still everything?” A voice asks on a wiretapped phone call.
“Yeah, everything is still everything” the other voice answers back.
It is the evening of Sept. 14, 2004, in A T L Georgia, and a task force of local, state, and Federal agents are listening to a crack dealer named Rafael "Smurf" Allison. Smurf and a guy called "Bowlegs" were not doing a very good job of having a coded conversation that sounded like a drug deal about to go down.
Despite confidently telling “Bowlegs” it was all good, Smurf hung up and dialed a number and asked the guy who answered the same question. "Is everything still everything?" And the guy answered just like Smurf Allison,
"Yeah, everything is still everything."
The investigators were part of the federal (for High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area) program, which sets up shop in certain big cities and targets anyone they can get intelligence on, for major dope cases.
They followed Smurf as he left his neighborhood near Turner Field and drove to an apartment complex off Howell Mill Road.
And thanks to the wiretap on Smurf's phone, it was only 2 days later when a Fulton County judge granted a request to wiretap phone the guy Smurf had gone to see off Howell Mill Road- Mr. Decarlo Hoskins.
Three days of listening to Hoskins proved fruitful. It sounded as if Decarlo was about to do a big coke deal with three dudes. He told them over the phone to meet him at "his spot." HIDTA agents took position at his apartment complex and waited.
