It was a double payday for Drug Task Force agents after back-to-back traffic stops netted four arrests for meth manufacturing Tuesday.

DTF Commander Mark Odom said the stops occurred during after-school traffic – the first on 10th Street in Opp and the second on Andalusia’s Martin Luther King Jr. Expressway.

“On opposite ends of Covington County, but at almost the same time, people were driving around with finished product methamphetamine and the items to make more meth, right after school let out in the middle of the week,” Odom said. “If that doesn’t show the extent of the methamphetamine epidemic, I don’t know what does.

“It’s like a plague, trying to destroy all that is good in our county, but meth cooks need to realize that we will catch you,”  he said.

Odom said the first stop occurred after agents got word that Geffrey Kyle Flagg of Opp was involved in the theft of narcotics.

“Agents spotted Flagg on 10th Street and made a traffic stop to discuss the allegations,” Odom said. It was then that agents discovered lithium batteries in Flagg’s pocket; saw muriatic acid and Drano in plain view in the truck bed; and then, from inside the vehicle, a metal pill container containing meth and both new and used medical syringes

Flagg, 39, was arrested and charged with manufacturing a controlled substance II, possession of controlled substance and possession of drug paraphernalia. His bond was set at $300,000.

Odom said minutes later in Andalusia, agents stopped 18-year-old Thomas Allen Green’s vehicle on the MLK Expressway.  After approaching the vehicle, Agent Greg Jackson spoke with Green and the vehicle’s passengers, Michael Romeo King, 19, and Matthew Aaron Kimmons, 18, and saw two boxes of pseudoephedrine in plain view.

“Green told Agent Jackson they that they had bought the pseudoephedrine from Wal-Mart and were on their way to cook methamphetamine with it,” he said.

Inside the vehicle, agents found used and new syringes, as well as a plastic bag containing a coffee filter and methamphetamine.

Each of the four were arrested and charged with manufacturing a controlled substance II, possession of controlled substance and possession of drug paraphernalia, booked into the Covington County Jail and held on a $300,000 bond.