SMALL METH LAB FOUND ON BOAT IN INTRACOASTAL WATERWAY A Daytona Beach man was arrested Thursday when a small methamphetamine lab was found on his sailboat while moored in the Intracoastal Waterway. The East Volusia Narcotics Task Force and the Daytona Beach Police Department followed up on tips that illegal drug activity was taking place on boats in the area. The follow up investigation based on those tips led agents to 50-year-old James Smith’s sailboat. He was charged with manufacture of methamphetamine and transported to the Volusia County Branch Jail in Daytona Beach. A passenger on the sailboat, 48-year-old Julia Mizer (12/7/65) was also arrested on a violation of probation warrant. A Volusia County Sheriff’s Marine Unit boat with investigators on board found the sailboat at about 11 a.m. When they pulled alongside, a marine deputy asked Smith if deputies could come aboard to conduct an inspection of the sailboat’s sanitation device. After Smith granted permission, the deputies found a plastic bottle with tubing sticking out of it in plain sight. The narcotics agents recognized it as a homemade generator used in meth making. The Marine Unit then towed the 28-foot fiberglass sailboat to the Seabreeze Boat Ramp in Daytona Beach where it could be safely searched. Found inside were bottles, tubes and miscellaneous chemicals used in the making of methamphetamine. Trained agents then safely dismantled the equipment. The East Volusia Narcotics Task Force is a multi-agency force of narcotics agents from the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office and the New Smyrna Beach, Ormond Beach and South Daytona police departments that shares resources and crosses jurisdictional boundaries to combat street-level drug and vice crimes.
Posted on: Thu, 20 Mar 2014 21:01:45 +0000