Homeland Security Task Force Secures Life Sentences for Two Leaders of Multimillion-Dollar Cocaine and Fentanyl-Trafficking Organization That Used Children as Couriers

MOBILE, AL - A Mobile man and woman were sentenced to life in prison for operating a multimillion-dollar drug-trafficking organization ("DTO") that distributed bulk cocaine and fentanyl and used children as couriers.

According to court documents and evidence presented at a three-week jury trial in January 2026, Glennie Antonio McGee, 42, Echandza Dianca Maxie, 43, and several coconspirators were members of a lucrative, Mobile-based DTO that distributed hundreds of pounds of cocaine and tens of thousands of fentanyl pills between 2017 and 2024. The DTO sourced cocaine from cartel-connected suppliers in Texas and, ultimately, Mexico. The DTO's fentanyl pills-counterfeited "M30" pills pressed to look like oxycodone-came from various sources in Alabama, Florida, Washington, and other locales.

At trial, the evidence against McGee and Maxie included numerous court-authorized wiretap recordings, CCTV videos from a covert camera installed in McGee's Cadillac Escalade, pole camera and aerial surveillance videos, text messages and other phone data, financial records, tax records, and DNA evidence, among other things. The jury heard evidence that the defendants used their illicit proceeds to travel the world, including trips to exotic locations including France, Greece, the Maldives, Mexico, Thailand, and the United Arab Emirates.

In December 2022, Federal Bureau of Investigation ("FBI") agents arrested one of McGee's cocaine suppliers following a dangerous high-speed chase in midtown Mobile. Agents seized 9.5 kilograms of cartel-sourced cocaine from the supplier, who was scheduled to deliver one kilogram of the cocaine to McGee that same evening. Weeks later, FBI agents executed a search warrant at McGee's and Maxie's house in west Mobile. Agents seized a backpack containing cocaine residue from a vehicle that Maxie was driving. They also seized bulk cash, custom jewelry and other proceeds of the defendants' drug crimes, a money-counting machine, drug ledgers, documents linking the defendants to other members of the DTO, and a Draco AK-47-style pistol from the house. Maxie lied to FBI agents and claimed the pistol belonged to her, but an FBI DNA analyst found McGee's DNA on the weapon and other evidence showed that one of McGee's drug couriers had illegally bought the weapon for him because he is a convicted felon who is prohibited from possessing guns. McGee's prior felonies include state convictions for shooting into occupied buildings and vehicles, as well as a federal conviction for trafficking crack cocaine. While agents were still on-scene searching the house, Maxie left the residence and traveled to multiple bank branches in Mobile and withdrew $138,000. Agents also found a ledger in the house linking Maxie and McGee to numerous fraudulent tax returns falsely claiming millions of dollars' worth of COVID-19 relief benefits.

In January and February 2024, Homeland Security Investigations ("HSI") agents obtained multiple recordings of McGee discussing his DTO's procurement and distribution of hundreds of pounds of cocaine and thousands of fentanyl pills. In those recordings, McGee explained how he took his drug profits and laundered them through real estate properties that he and Maxie had acquired, including properties they rented out on Airbnb. On February 17, 2024, agents recorded McGee selling 1,018 fentanyl pills to a cooperating defendant.

In March 2024, HSI agents began a court-authorized wiretap of several cell phones used by McGee. Agents intercepted more than 8,000 calls during three months' worth of monitoring. At trial, the jury reviewed more than 100 recorded calls and videos from the covert CCTV camera installed in McGee's Escalade. On those calls and videos, agents captured McGee making dozens of drug deals for bulk cocaine and fentanyl pills. Agents also intercepted Maxie brokering a drug deal on McGee's behalf. In one instance on March 18, 2024, McGee sold a kilogram of cocaine to a customer for $18,000 in the driveway of his mother's house on Euclid Avenue in Mobile. A pole camera captured a 15-year-old child hand delivering the brick of cocaine to McGee.

On March 30, 2024, agents arrested one of McGee's drug couriers, Tierra Tocorra Hill, in possession of a kilogram of cocaine, a quarter-kilogram of fake cocaine (boric acid), and a loaded pistol. McGee had unknowingly purchased several kilograms of fake cocaine and instructed Hill to mix the boric acid into real cocaine for resale on the street to recuperate his losses for the bad cocaine deal. Boric acid is a household cleaner and detergent. When McGee learned that Hill had been arrested, he traveled to a stash house on Harvey Court in Mobile. There, as recorded on the wiretap, McGee instructed several young children, including an eight-year-old boy he described as "game," to remove a backpack that contained bulk cocaine from the house and throw it over a fence. Agents responded to the house and encountered the children, including a three-year-old boy who was wearing the backpack filled with pounds of cocaine. Inside the house, agents found additional bulk cocaine and loaded firearms that McGee was storing there. After the raid, agents intercepted calls in which McGee attempted to coach the children to lie to Alabama Department of Human Resources personnel about the incident.

In June 2024, agents intercepted several calls involving McGee and his Houston, Texas-based suppliers, Eric Anthony Aguilar and Jonathan Maurice Hackworth, arranging a shipment of five kilograms of cocaine to the DTO in Mobile. During a traffic stop in Mobile on June 13, 2024, agents seized $24,000 in bulk cash that McGee had paid Aguilar for a portion of the drugs. Later that same day, agents arrested McGee after he and one of his DTO lieutenants, Antonio Dwone Reed, attempted to flee in a brief high-speed chase. Agents boxed in the vehicle and encountered McGee with three kilograms of cocaine sitting in his lap. McGee then confessed in a videotaped interview that he had been dealing bulk cocaine since 2017 and earned $20,000 per month in profits.

Following McGee's arrest, agents intercepted Maxie and her sister, Exavieria Deagnes Maxie ("Exavieria") plotting to conceal evidence while operating the bugged Escalade. Specifically, Maxie gave Exavieria, a convicted felon, a shoebox full of custom jewelry and a loaded .380 caliber pistol. Exavieria took the jewelry and gun and stashed them in her apartment in west Mobile. Thereafter, on CCTV recordings, Maxie and Exavieria directed a 15-year-old child to find the gun and toss it from a balcony before agents could enter the apartment. When Maxie's teenage son tried to instruct the 15-year-old, her nephew, how to remove the clip from the loaded weapon, Maxie stated, "No, tell him don't do all that. Just drop it off. . . . [H]e ain't got time to do that. We ain't got time to coach him." Exavieria was intercepted admitting that she told her 15-year-old son to toss the gun from the balcony. Agents found the loaded pistol near a softball field behind the apartment. Exavieria then admitted to agents that she had brought the gun to her apartment from McGee's and Maxie's house. Exavieria had previously been convicted of a federal methamphetamine-trafficking offense and was prohibited from possessing firearms.

"For nearly a decade, Glennie McGee and Echandza Maxie led a drug-trafficking empire that peddled hundreds of pounds of deadly cocaine and fentanyl. They despicably involved young children in that effort. Now, their crimes are over for good," said Sean P. Costello, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Alabama. "This extraordinary multi-agency investigation demonstrates the creativeness and grit of the Homeland Security Task Force. Working alongside our agency partners, our office will stop at nothing to protect children and stem the flow of deadly drugs into our community."

"Trafficking hundreds of pounds of cocaine and tens of thousands of counterfeit fentanyl pills is not just a crime, it is a direct assault on the safety of our communities," said Steven N. Schrank, Special Agent in Charge of Homeland Security Investigations in Georgia and Alabama. "This investigation stands as a testament to HSI's commitment, alongside our Homeland Security Task Force partners, to eradicate violent drug trafficking organizations from our neighborhoods. The life sentences announced today guarantee that these individuals will never again force innocent children and teenagers to act as couriers or conceal weapons, sending a clear message that those who traffic poison and exploit our youth will face the ultimate consequences."

"Our partnership through the Homeland Security Task Force demonstrates the impact of a whole-of-government approach. By combining intelligence, investigative tools, and the work of agents across many jurisdictions, we delivered accountability, protected vulnerable children, and continued crushing violent crime tied to deadly fentanyl and cocaine trafficking," said Christopher Flowers, Special Agent-in-Charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Mobile Office.

In addition to the lifetime prison terms, U.S. District Judge Terry F. Moorer ordered McGee and Maxie to pay $10 million and $1 million fines, respectively, to each reimburse the Criminal Justice Act panel nearly $250,000 in funds expended for their court-appointed attorneys. McGee and Maxie were ordered to pay a total of $2,846,901.97 in restitution for their fraud crimes. The court also ordered forfeiture of real estate, high-end vehicles, luxury jewelry, cash, firearms, and bank accounts, and issued money judgments totaling $500,000. Judge Moorer also ordered the defendants to pay a total of $1,900 in special assessments.

For their roles in the DTO, the court previously sentenced the following codefendants: Eric Anthony Aguilar (163 months); Jonathan Maurice Hackworth (48 months); Antonio Dwone Reed (43 months); William Thomas Agee, Jr. (105 months); Tavaris Lamon Body (75 months); Exavieria Deagnes Maxie (240 months). Other codefendants, including Tierra Tocorra Hill, will be sentenced at a later date.

U.S. Attorney Sean P. Costello of the Southern District of Alabama made the announcement.

Homeland Security Investigations, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the Mobile County Sheriff's Office, the Mobile Police Department, and the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency investigated the case. The United States Marshals Service and several local agencies in Houston, Texas substantially assisted the investigation.

Assistant U.S. Attorneys Justin Roller and George May prosecuted the case on behalf of the United States.

This prosecution was part of the Homeland Security Task Force (HSTF) initiative established by Executive Order 14159, Protecting the American People Against Invasion. The HSTF is a whole-of-government partnership dedicated to eliminating criminal cartels, foreign gangs, transnational criminal organizations, and human smuggling and trafficking rings operating in the United States and abroad. Through historic interagency collaboration, the HSTF directs the full might of United States law enforcement towards identifying, investigating, and prosecuting the full spectrum of crimes committed by these organizations, which have long fueled violence and instability within our borders. In performing this work, the HSTF places special emphasis on investigating and prosecuting those engaged in child trafficking or other crimes involving children. The HSTF further utilizes all available tools to prosecute and remove the most violent criminal aliens from the United States. HSTF Mobile comprises agents and officers from, among others, Homeland Security Investigations, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, with the prosecution being led by the United States Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Alabama.