Arrests made relating to the sale of vaping products

    If law enforcement gives you break with a warning, you’d best stop doing whatever you were warned against.
    That’s the message the Stephens County Sheriff’s Office put out in a recent release after the arrest of several individuals in the sale of vaping products.
    Sheriff Randy Shirley said that investigators started in 2019 visiting stores selling vape products — most recently this past August — and warned them to remove some illegal products on their shelves identified as schedule one narcotics.
    But that didn’t happen at all the stores, Shirley said.
    Shirley said three stores failed to heed investigators’ instructions – The Smoke Shop on Walmart Way, Royal Foods on Highway 106, and RK Foods on West Currahee Street.
    “Each (of these) business in Stephens County was warned and they totally rejected the warnings by chief deputy Andy Myers and investigators,” Shirley said.
    “Each of the three businesses that were targeted by this investigation decided to continue selling a dangerous product to members of our community that included our ‘young people’,” he said.
    Warrants were issued on Sept. 16 for the arrest of business owners.
    Shirley said two of the owners had been arrested: RK Foods’ Singh Jogi, 27, of Buford, and Smoke Shop’s Ali Saif-Mohamed Al-Hadrami, 24, of Toccoa, charged with possession of a schedule one substance with intent to distribute.
    On Tuesday, Shirley said that the third owner of Royal Foods, Ghulam Mohammad, 64, of Buford, remained “at large and is a wanted fugitive.”
    “On Sept. 16, investigators traveled to three locations in Stephens County that continued to ignore Georgia law by selling the illegal products and totally rejected the two previous warnings by sheriff’s office investigators to remove the illegal products from their shelves,” Shirley said.
    “Therefore, sheriff’s office investigators used an undercover officer who purchased a vape cartridge from each of the three businesses,” Shirley said.
    “The illegal vape cartridges were then tested and all three indicated the high level presence of THC the illegal chemical in marijuana that causes euphoric high,” Shirley said.
    Shirley said investigations seized more than 1,300 products containing the Delta 9 THC product.
    Those products, Shirley said, included “gummy type edibles as well as raw, green leafy materials.”
    “These products have a combined value of approximately $60,000,” Shirley said.
    “Investigators also seized more than $70,000 in cash from the three businesses,” Shirley said.
    Shirley said the sheriff’s office wants everyone to know the products are not safe, nor FDA approved, and not chemically tested for human consumption.
    “These illegal products are an attempt to circumvent Georgia marijuana law and are designed and intended to produce a high similar to marijuana which impairs the user’s brain function, making it unsafe for someone under the influence of these products to operate machinery or drive a vehicle,” Shirley said.