A federal judge in Mobile sentenced Glennie Antonio McGee, 42, and Echandza Dianca Maxie, 43, to life in prison after a jury found the pair guilty of running a multimillion-dollar drug-trafficking organization that used young children, including an eight-year-old and a three-year-old, to move cocaine and hide weapons. U.S. District Judge Terry F. Moorer also ordered McGee to pay a $10 million fine and Maxie to pay $1 million, on top of a combined restitution order tied to a related tax-fraud scheme.
According to Tampa Free Press, McGee and Maxie operated the network from 2017 to 2024, moving hundreds of pounds of cocaine and tens of thousands of counterfeit fentanyl pills across the region. Investigators say agents encountered the two young children, ages eight and three, wearing a cocaine-filled backpack during the operation, and that McGee instructed young children to move a backpack containing bulk cocaine at Harvey Court in Mobile. The pair were convicted on January 27, 2026, following a three-week federal jury trial, according to the Department of Justice.
Children Used as Couriers and Human Shields
Court records described in the DOJ's account show that in March 2024, Maxie brokered a cocaine transaction in which a 15-year-old delivered one kilogram of cocaine to a buyer in a residential driveway. The same month, Echandza Maxie and her sister, Exavieria Deagnes Maxie, directed a 15-year-old to discard a loaded .380 caliber pistol, which officers later recovered near a softball field. Prosecutors say McGee also attempted to instruct children to lie to child welfare officials, and at one point instructed co-defendant Tierra Tocorra Hill to mix boric acid into real cocaine before her March 2024 arrest, when she was found with a kilogram of cocaine, loaded firearms, and boric acid. Hill will be sentenced at a later date.
The use of minors carries specific legal weight under federal law. Per EveryCRSReport.com, 21 U.S.C. § 861 establishes a distinct felony for knowingly employing minors under 18 in drug operations or to avoid apprehension, exposing adult offenders to up to double the maximum statutory prison terms otherwise authorized. Steven N. Schrank said that trafficking cocaine and counterfeit fentanyl pills directly threatens community safety, while Christopher Flowers said the Homeland Security task force partnership delivered accountability and protected vulnerable children, per the DOJ.
A Cadillac Bugged for a Year, 8,000 Wiretapped Calls
Homeland Security Investigations agents obtained a court warrant to secretly install a hidden camera inside McGee's 2021 Cadillac Escalade, capturing more than 100 video recordings of drug deals and incriminating conversations that were later played for the jury, the Department of Justice's announcement states. A court-authorized wiretap separately intercepted more than 8,000 phone calls over three months, capturing dozens of drug deals, while investigators also drew on phone data, financial records, pole cameras, aerial surveillance, and DNA analysis. HSI recordings reportedly captured McGee discussing drug shipments and laundering profits through real estate in 2024, and McGee admitted in a recorded interview to dealing bulk cocaine since 2017 and earning roughly $20,000 per month in profit.
The investigation traced a major supply break to December 2022, when FBI agents arrested one of McGee's primary cocaine suppliers following a high-speed chase through midtown Mobile and seized 9.5 kilograms of cocaine intended for him. Federal agents began dismantling the wider operation in late 2022. McGee was ultimately taken into custody on June 13, 2024, the same day he was found with three kilograms of cocaine in his lap and officers seized $24,000 during a traffic stop involving a supplier. Cocaine moved through the network was sourced through cartel-linked suppliers in Texas and Mexico, while the fentanyl came from sources in Alabama, Florida, Washington, and other states, pressed to resemble prescription M30 oxycodone pills.
Cash Grab During the Raid, Millions in Tax Fraud
Federal investigators say that while agents were actively searching McGee and Echandza Maxie's west Mobile home under a search warrant, Maxie left the property and made rapid cash withdrawals totaling $138,000 across multiple local bank branches. Agents searching related properties found cash, custom jewelry, drug ledgers, a money counter, and a Century Arms Draco AK-47-style pistol that contained McGee's DNA; McGee had been barred from owning firearms because of prior convictions for shooting into occupied buildings and vehicles and for trafficking crack cocaine.
The couple ran a parallel $2.8 million tax fraud scheme through Self Made Taxes, a Mobile business owned by Echandza Maxie, where she, McGee, and her sister Edeszann Dailene Maxie filed hundreds of false returns claiming COVID-19 pandemic leave credits, according to the DOJ. Investigators recovered a ledger detailing millions of dollars in fraudulent COVID-19 relief claims. McGee and Maxie were ordered to pay more than $2.8 million in restitution tied to that scheme, and a court imposed a $500,000 money judgment against them. The two were also ordered to reimburse nearly $250,000 in court-appointed attorney fees and assessed $1,900 in court fees.
Exotic Trips and Forfeited Luxury Vehicles
Prosecutors say McGee laundered drug proceeds through real estate, including short-term rental properties, while trafficking proceeds also financed international travel to France, Greece, the Maldives, Mexico, Thailand, and the United Arab Emirates. A court ordered forfeiture of real estate, luxury vehicles, cash, jewelry, and firearms tied to the case; earlier federal filings reviewed by PacerMonitor specifically targeted a 2021 Dodge Durango SRT Hellcat, a 2021 Cadillac Escalade, a 2017 Lexus RX 350, and a Draco AK-47-style pistol.
Exavieria Deagnes Maxie, who accepted a shoebox containing custom jewelry and a loaded .380 caliber pistol from her sister after McGee's arrest, was sentenced in May 2026 to the statutory maximum of 20 years — 240 months — in federal prison for firearms trafficking and evidence tampering. Several other defendants tied to the network have also been sentenced: William Thomas Agee Jr. received 105 months, Eric Anthony Aguilar received 163 months, Tavaris Lamon Body received 75 months, Antonio Dwone Reed received 43 months, and Jonathan Maurice Hackworth received 48 months in federal prison.
Legal Drama and a Statewide Overdose Crisis
The case included an unusual pre-trial episode: in October 2025, Judge Moorer formally reprimanded and sanctioned McGee's defense attorney, James A. Johnson, after Johnson filed a motion containing fabricated legal citations generated by an artificial intelligence program, according to court records logged by FindLaw. Sean P. Costello said McGee and Maxie led a drug-trafficking empire for nearly a decade, per the DOJ. The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Justin Roller and George May, and the joint investigation involved HSI, the FBI, DEA, ATF, the Mobile County Sheriff's Office, Mobile Police Department, and the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency, with assistance from the U.S. Marshals Service and local agencies in Houston, Texas.
The prosecution lands amid a broader statewide reckoning with counterfeit fentanyl. Driven largely by fake pills pressed to resemble prescription opioids, Alabama's drug overdose death rate doubled to 31.5 per 100,000 in 2022, according to the Alabama Department of Mental Health, before provisional CDC data indicated a 30 percent decline in state overdose deaths between April 2024 and April 2025.
