Drug Task Force moving to Albany after Oct. 1

ALBANY – After being located in Albany for much of the 1980s and 1990s, a Georgia Bureau of Investigation drug enforcement team is returning.

The move will include a program through which the GBI trains and provides equipment to local officers, said Joe Chesnut, special agent in charge of the office now located in Sylvester.

Chesnut gave an update to Albany City Commission members during a meeting in which commissioners approved a lease agreement in which the Dougherty County Commission also is participating.

The unit also will focus on gang activity, which is a priority of agency Director Vic Reynolds, Chesnut said.

“It will be drugs and gangs,” he said. “We will be working on drugs and gangs throughout the southwest Georgia area.”

The task force, housed in Sylvester since 1999, covers 42 counties, stretching from Perry to Valdosta, to the Alabama border, and as far north as Chattahoochee County. It has seven agents but will boost its manpower through a grant that will fund training and equip local agencies. Currently, one Albany Police Department officer works with the unit. With the grant, the unit will add another Albany officer and one each from the Dougherty County Police Department and Dougherty County Sheriff’s Office.

Chesnut said his long-term plan calls for adding additional officers from other agencies in the region.

Those officers will be sworn in as GBI Drug Task Force agents, which will extend their jurisdiction beyond city and county lines, Chesnut said.

The task force will move into a building located near the Dougherty County Jail. The GBI’s criminal investigation unit will remain in Sylvester. The Albany building will become available on Oct. 1, and agents will move in some time after that.

Staff Photo: Alan Mauldin
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