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| Gary Hill |
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| Paula Hill |
DAYTONA BEACH, Florida -- Similar to a story plot from the movie Fun With Dick and Jane, a Tennessee married couple had dreams of building a
new home but needed $12,000 to start the construction. With nearly $8,000 on hand,
they came up with a plan to, hopefully, double their money.
Law enforcement says that they made arrangements
to travel to Daytona Beach
and buy 800 illegal pills and then resell them for a profit. However, instead
of a supplier with a bag of pills, Gary and Paula Hill found themselves face to
face with agents from the Volusia Bureau of Investigation (VBI) Wednesday
afternoon.
Through undercover
investigative work, agents learned that the Hills had allegedly made a
similar transaction in 2010 and were in the market to do so again. 41-year-old Gary Hill and 39-year-old Paula Hill allegedly made phone contact with
who they thought was a supplier, but who was actually someone working
undercover.
The Volusia Sheriff's Office says that they agreed to pay about $10 per 100mg pill for 800 morphine pills
and anticipated being able to resell them for about $18 apiece. The undercover
arranged to meet the Hills in the Volusia Mall parking lot in Daytona Beach at 1:30 p.m. Wednesday. As soon
as the couple arrived, VBI agents stopped them and took them into custody.
The husband and wife,
from Maryville Tennessee, allegedly admitted to agents that they were using
money recently obtained from a settlement to buy the pills. They had already
pulled permits for the home construction and hoped to quickly double their
settlement money through the pill sales. Agents found $7,778 in cash on the
couple when they were arrested. They were booked into the Volusia County Branch
Jail in Daytona Beach.
Both were charged with attempted trafficking in dangerous drugs, which carries
a $50,000 bond. Gary
was also charged with unlawful use of a two way communications device.
VBI is a multi-agency
task force that pools resources from 10 local, state and federal law
enforcement agencies in order to target mid- and upper-level narcotics
traffickers as well as racketeering and organized crime. Participating agencies
include the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office, Florida Department of Law
Enforcement, the Attorney’s General’s Office of Statewide
Prosecution, Daytona Beach Police Department, Daytona Beach Shores Department
of Public Safety, DeLand Police Department, Port Orange Police Department, New
Smyrna Beach Police Department, the U.S. Department of Immigration and Customs
Enforcement and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. VBI
also is part of the Central Florida High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area, or
HIDTA, which is a multi-agency task force established by the U.S. Office of
National Drug Control Policy to combat drug trafficking along the seven-county
area hugging Central Florida’s I-4 corridor.