source: https://www.courier-journal.com/in-depth/news/crime/2019/11/24/cartel-drugs-addiction-duo-ran-redneck-meth-empire-appalachia/4087610002/
Here is an intro excerpt:
How this couple ran a ‘redneck’ meth empire in an Appalachian county ravaged by addiction
Kala Kachmar, Louisville Courier Journal ~ Nov. 26, 2019
HICKORY, N.C. — Roger Dale Franklin and Lisa Dawn Wentworth got tired of waiting on the dope man.
Frustrated by three-hour holdups for a quarter-bag of crystal meth delivered by a man folks called Bones, the couple from Lenoir, North Carolina, started thinking about alternatives in the winter of 2013.
“I joked with Roger that there was a job opening,” Lisa Dawn said. “I’ve known Bones since I was 16, and I got tired of tracking him down. I said, ‘God dang, we can do better than that.’”
Roger Dale told her he had connections.
How we reported this story:
Throughout 2019, Courier Journal reporters analyzed thousands of court records and transcripts of more than 100 CJNG-linked cases around the country and talked to more than 150 federal drug agents, police officers, defense attorneys and prosecutors, as well as relatives, co-workers and neighbors of those accused. The team traveled to 15 cities across the United States and to Mexico City and Guadalajara. Reporters also reached out to more than two dozen alleged cartel members or associates.
“I said, ‘Go prove it,’” Lisa Dawn remembered. “And he did.”
What Lisa Dawn didn’t know was that her boyfriend’s connections were deeply rooted in one of the most dangerous drug cartels in the world (https://www.courier-journal.com/in-depth/news/crime/2019/11/24/el-menchos-mexican-drug-cartel-cjng-empire-devastating-small-towns/4181733002/) — a rising power that has saturated the U.S. with ultra-pure methamphetamine, cocaine, heroin and fentanyl from California and Alaska to Mississippi and Virginia.
Less than a decade old, Mexico’s Cártel Jalisco Nueva Generación (https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-treasury-and-state-departments-announce-coordinated-enforcement-efforts-against), better known as CJNG, has fought its way to take its place among the world’s largest drug networks, led by its ruthless but disciplined leader, Ruben Oseguera Cervantes, better known as "El Mencho."
Since early 2011, CJNG has smuggled hundreds of millions of dollars of drugs over the border into the U.S., spreading into at least 35 states with a sophisticated network that has used less populated rural areas to quietly move tons of product, a Courier Journal investigation found.
In Charlotte and the nearby mountain counties, other cartels have supplied drugs to the region, but CJNG has been the most dominant.
It sent in at least five “trusted, high-level” cartel members who set up North Carolina stash houses and front businesses in metro Charlotte, Hickory (a suburban town of about 40,000 an hour north of Charlotte) and nearby Johnson City, Tennessee, federal agents say.
Along the way, CJNG relied on residents like Roger Dale and Lisa Dawn to deal its drugs to users — people who would seamlessly blend with the local community without arousing suspicion.
"If it’s coming from a cartel, they could have sold a pound to Asians, black guys, outlaw motorcycle gangs, white trash,” said Ashe County Sheriff’s Lt. Jeremy Williams, whose testimony helped convict a trafficker connected to CJNG in 2014.
“Once the cartel brings a huge load across and throws it out there for everyone to sell, it’s out of their hands. They’ve got their money.”
It was a symbiotic relationship that allowed Roger Dale and Lisa Dawn’s drug business to thrive.
Spurred by his own fierce addiction, Roger Dale used his connections to gain access to mass quantities of nearly pure crystal meth, dispensing kilograms of drugs that had been smuggled into the region from cartel labs in Mexico.
(https://www.gannett-cdn.com/indepth-static-assets/uploads/master/4087610002/a22dbc0e-4b26-4ac7-8502-f72ab7800d53-dixiecrystal.jpg)
The full article (with videos etc.) can be found here (https://www.courier-journal.com/in-depth/news/crime/2019/11/24/cartel-drugs-addiction-duo-ran-redneck-meth-empire-appalachia/4087610002/)