<p>Forty-nine people and 16 corporations were charged in indictments unsealed Friday with supplying common everyday items from antifreeze to matchbooks to informants who had claimed they were using the products to make methamphetamine.</p><p>The investigation, which began in early 2004, focused on convenience stores in six north Georgia counties and was based on complaints from the public. Authorities began arresting the suspects on Friday.</p><p>Businesses raided in the investigation ranged from small groceries or delis to tobacco shops.</p><p>Investigators had informants go into each of the stores and buy ingredients used to make methamphetamine after telling the clerk or owner of the store that the items were being sought for that purpose.</p><p>The ingredients sold included pseudoephedrine, ephedrine, camping fuel, antifreeze and matchbooks. The items are not illegal to sell, but selling them for the purposes of making meth is.</p><p>The government said in a statement accompanying the indictments, which were returned May 7 but sealed until Friday, that because of the increase of meth manufacturing in eastern Tennessee, northwest Georgia and northeast Alabama, a "gray market" has developed. Prosecutors say businesses that distribute products that also may be used to make meth have begun catering to meth manufacturers by supplying greater than normal quantities of the materials at inflated prices.</p><p>As part of the indictments, the government is seeking forfeiture of any money traced to the alleged crimes, including interests in corporations and businesses involved in the meth trade.</p><p>One of the people indicted, Tonya Layman, told an informant during one transaction that her husband was in jail for cooking methamphetamine and that she wanted some of the meth when the informant was done preparing it, a law enforcement affidavit says. Layman, 32, of Trenton, Ga., then sold the informant seven bottles of pseudoephedrine and seven tab boxes of nasal decongestant that contains pseudoephedrine, among other drugs.</p><p>Another suspect indicted in the case, Balvedbhai Patel, 41, of Chattanooga, Tenn., sold a government informant 2,500 matchbooks and three cans of lighter fluid at a tobacco store in Walker County, among other things, the affidavit says.</p><p>The informant then asked Patel, "Are you going to call the police?" Patel responded, according to the affidavit, "No."</p><p>Dilip Patel, one of the owners of Creekside Grocery, denied that two of his clerks who were indicted would sell items they knew would be used to make meth. The store sells only single packs of cold and sinus medicine, he said, and the pipes he sells are only for tobacco.</p><p>"We have a sign that says for tobacco use only," Patel told the Daily Citizen in Dalton.</p><p>Patel said law enforcement officials seized $12,000 in cash from his business that was to be used to cash checks.</p><p>"This is going to hurt us big time," he said. "I have no cash for my customers."</p><p>Thirteen of the 15 confidential informants the government used as part of the probe all have been charged with crimes, convicted of crimes or have pending charges against them. Some of the charges against them were for drug offenses, including meth possession, the addidavit said.</p><p>The counties the investigation focused on are Catoosa, Chattooga, Floyd, Whitfield, Walker and Dade.</p>
