Southeast
Small town police on front lines of cartels' drug war costing Americans their lives
A small city in Alabama has become a “hot spot” for drugs, and police are determined to take back their community.
“These men and women, the vast majority of them grew up there,” Lou Valoze, a retired agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), told Fox News Digital.
“These are residents who are fighting this war to protect their community, the community that they live in, that their kids are growing up in, that their friends are in,” Valoze shared. “This is very personal to them. What they’re doing is probably the most dangerous and difficult aspect of law enforcement, which is undercover work, because it is the most effective tool in combating illegal drugs, illegal guns and human trafficking.”
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Lou Valoze, right, talks with Sgt. Garett Pesnell of the Oxford Police Department. (Courtesy of Investigation Discovery)
Valoze is leading a new series on Investigation Discovery (ID) titled “Operation Undercover.” The show takes viewers “inside real-life discreet operations run by police to keep communities across the country safe.” It features exclusive footage of undercover stings targeting arms dealers, drug suppliers and human traffickers, among others.
The first episode, which premieres Nov. 12, focuses on Oxford, Alabama, a town located right off Highway 20, which runs from Atlanta to Birmingham. The area has been eyed by investigators due to its high activity of fentanyl, an opioid that can be 50 times as powerful as the same amount of heroin. According to the episode, it has become the primary drug of choice for smugglers.
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The Oxford Police Department is preparing to execute a bust and search warrant. (Courtesy of Investigation Discovery)
“It is being produced and made at these super labs… that are mostly in Mexico and being brought over to the border,” Valoze explained. “It’s very cheap to make, and you can make large quantities of it. It is so potent. You only need a little bit for the desired results. They can get it out there, whether it’s pure fentanyl or mixed with other drugs, and make it available everywhere – and make it very cheap.”
The Oxford Police Department seized evidence from a bust and search warrant. (Courtesy of Investigation Discovery)
“You have that combination of availability and affordability – that is why it is spreading the way it’s spreading, and we’re seeing deaths every day, unfortunately,” Valoze added.
Fentanyl and other lab-produced synthetic opioids are driving an overdose crisis deadlier than any the U.S. has ever seen. In 2021, overdoses from all drugs claimed more than 100,000 lives for the first time, and the deaths in 2022 remained at nearly the same level — more than gun and auto deaths combined.
Lou Valoze initially pursued a banking career. However, his encounter with an undercover Drug Enforcement Administration agent inspired him to join the Department of Justice, leading to a 25-year tenure as an undercover agent. (Courtesy of Investigation Discovery)
The federal government counted more accidental overdose deaths in 2021 alone than it did in the 20-year period from 1979 through 1998. Overdoses in recent years have been many times more frequent than they were during the black tar heroin epidemic that led former President Richard Nixon to launch his “War on Drugs” or during the cocaine crisis in the 1980s.
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A photo of Makayla Cox, who died of a fentanyl overdose at age 16, is displayed among other portraits on “The Faces of Fentanyl” wall, which displays photos of Americans who died from a fentanyl overdose, at the Drug Enforcement Administration headquarters in Arlington, Virginia, on July 13, 2022. (AGNES BUN/AFP via Getty Images)
Experts believe deaths surged not only because the drugs are so powerful, but also because fentanyl is laced into so many other illicit drugs.
Still, advocates have warned that some of the alarms being sounded by politicians and officials are wrong and potentially dangerous.
Lou Valoze praised the Oxford Police Department for their “impressive” efforts in combating drugs in their town. (Courtesy of Investigation Discovery)
Among those ideas include that tightening control of the U.S.-Mexico border would stop the flow of drugs, though experts say the key to reining in the crisis is reducing drug demand; that fentanyl might turn up in kids’ trick-or-treat baskets on Halloween; and that merely touching the drug briefly can be fatal — something that researchers found untrue.
Lou Valoze talks with members of the Oxford Police Department. With a 25-year career as an undercover agent, Valoze has faced the Chicago mob, outlaw biker gangs and domestic terrorists. (Courtesy of Investigation Discovery)
Advocates have expressed concern that this information could cause first responders to hesitate about giving lifesaving treatment.
The premiere episode of “Operation Undercover” details the connection between Mexico and Oxford specifically.
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency has warned that fentanyl is being sold in multicolored pills and powders — sometimes referred to as “rainbow fentanyl” — marketed on social media to teens and young adults. (Courtesy of Investigation Discovery)
“It’s the same connection as in almost every small town in the country,” said Valoze. “The cartels are very businesslike. They run their organizations the same way a Fortune 500 company runs their organizations. They have major distribution points in the southeast.”
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A 2022 report from a bipartisan federal commission found that fentanyl and similar drugs are being made mostly in labs in Mexico from chemicals shipped primarily from China. (Courtesy of Investigation Discovery)
“Atlanta is a major distributing point,” he shared. “Obviously, Miami is a major distribution point. And what they do is they create territories for their distribution. It goes down like any business.”
Valoze said drug dealers are likely to develop “territories” in cities connected to major highways for quicker accessibility. Oxford, he noted, is “pretty much right in the middle” of Highway 20.
According to “Operation Undercover,” drug dealers have eyed Oxford, Alabama, due to its accessibility to Highway 20. (Courtesy of Investigation Discovery)
“The police are doing everything they can through highway interdiction, but it’s not enough,” he said. “[But] the Oxford Police Department has become proactive. A lot of the drug activity and a lot of the… sex trafficking is happening at… the hotels that are right off the highway.
Oxford Police Department and Lou Valoze at the scene of a bust and search warrant. (Courtesy of Investigation Discovery)
“They are proactively going out there using informants, using undercover officers to combat this problem, and they’re having amazing results.”
During filming, Valoze said he was impressed with how the Oxford Police Department had been successfully conducting its investigations.
Lou Valoze, left, talks with Sgt. Garett Pesnell of the Oxford Police Department. (Courtesy of Investigation Discovery)
“I’m coming from a federal background where we have a lot of resources,” he said. “A lot of times when you go to a smaller city, they don’t have the same resources… but they were conducting themselves the same way that we as feds conduct ourselves.
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Across the country, fentanyl is being laced into drugs such as cocaine and methamphetamine, sometimes with deadly results. In some cases, it is mixed in Mexico or the U.S. with other substances and pressed into pills meant to look like other drugs. (Courtesy of Investigation Discovery)
“… They do their homework through intelligence gathering and surveillance. They knew exactly who they were going against, and they were working with other departments in that area, task forces. By the time they send an agent or an undercover officer into a dangerous situation to make a deal, the deck is stacked in their favor.”
Police in small U.S. communities are combating deadly drugs shipped over the border. (Courtesy of Investigation Discovery)
“They spent their weeks surveilling these people… knowing where they sleep, knowing what their habits were, knowing what they do,” Valoze continued. “That makes it as safe as possible to do an undercover deal when you have all that intelligence… And then on the backside of it, when it was time to take these people down, their preparation was just phenomenal. Their SWAT teams, the intelligence and the surveillance they did before they executed these warrants was so impressive to me.”
A misconception the public has about undercover investigations, Valoze stressed, is that it is “unfair to one side.”
Lou Valoze, center, meets with Capt. Josh Miller and Sgt. Brad Young, left, of the Oxford Police Department. (Courtesy of Investigation Discovery)
“The reality of the situation is that people are dying,” he said. “Whether it is a fentanyl overdose, a heroin overdose, gun violence, or human slavery through human trafficking and sex trafficking, people are getting hurt… The purpose of these undercover investigations is to save lives and make the community safer.”
Lou Valoze, left, meets with Capt. Josh Miller of the Oxford Police Department. (Courtesy of Investigation Discovery)
“There’s no fame or fortune involved in this,” Valoze reflected. “There are not a lot of accolades. These are undercover officers, men and women, doing all of this to make the community safer.
“I think when you watch ‘Operation Undercover,’ you’re going to appreciate what they do and why they do it. You’ll get a true understanding of why these undercover operations are essential to keep communities safe.”
“Operation Undercover” premieres Tuesday, Nov. 12 at 10 p.m. with new episodes airing weekly. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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A Florida man is behind bars after allegedly killing a woman and leaving her body on a popular beach the day after Christmas.
Brandon Ward McCray, 28, was taken into custody by the U.S. Marshals and Hollywood Police Department on Dec. 30, 2025 and charged with sexual battery, kidnapping, battery and battery by strangulation, according to police records obtained by Fox News Digital.
Authorities responded to a call regarding a body on the sand of Hollywood Beach – located approximately 15 miles from Fort Lauderdale Beach – at around 7 a.m. on the morning of Dec. 26, 2025, according to WPLG. The victim, later identified as 56-year-old Heather Asendorf, was pronounced dead at the scene.
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Brandon Ward McCray is charged with sexual battery, kidnapping, battery and battery by strangulation in Broward County, Florida, according to police records obtained by Fox News Digital. (Broward County Sheriff’s Office)
Witnesses later told NBC Miami the body was wrapped in a white blanket and had blood trailing from the remains.
Officials did not release details regarding Asendorf’s cause of death, but previously stated that foul play was suspected.
Additionally, detectives believe McCray and Asendorf knew each other prior to the alleged murder, according to WSVN.
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Authorities reportedly allege Brandon Ward McCray murdered 56-year-old Heather Asendorf after her body was found on Hollywood Beach in Hollywood, Florida on Dec. 26, 2025. (iStock)
“This case remains an active criminal investigation,” Hollywood police said in a news release. “There is no indication of a broader threat to the community.”
McCray was previously charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon in 2023 after allegedly brandishing a gun at a tow truck driver as his vehicle was being repossessed, according to NBC Miami.
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Officials reportedly did not release details regarding Heather Asendorf’s cause of death, but previously stated that foul play was suspected. (iStock)
He was taken into custody at his nearby home and booked into the Broward County Main Jail on $770,000 bond, WPLG reported.
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The Hollywood Police Department and McCray’s attorney did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
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Southeast
Experts warn of biggest ‘scandal in litigation system’ if SCOTUS doesn’t nix landmark energy pollution case
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FIRST ON FOX: A landmark Supreme Court case set to decide whether Big Oil entities can move coastal erosion suits out of local and state courts and cement them in federal courts, as localities continue to seek billions from domestic oil companies, will have far-reaching repercussions, experts said.
Last year, a jury in coastal Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana, ordered Chevron to pay more than $740 million for wetlands damage linked to operations by its former subsidiary Texaco in the mid-20th century.
While the Supreme Court case does not seek to overturn the fine and was filed before the Louisiana ruling, a decision by the high court could carry multibillion-dollar implications, several legal experts said.
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A Chevron Corp. flag flies on the drilling floor of a Nabors Industries Ltd. drill rig in the Permian Basin near Midland, Texas, U.S., on Thursday, March 1, 2018. (Daniel Acker/Bloomberg/Getty Images)
As Chevron argues the suits it is facing in certain Gulf Coast communities — where critics claim some local and state officials are in cahoots against them and aligned with friendly attorneys for the municipalities — many damage claims stem from World War II-era fuel production carried out under federal contract. The companies say that the link to the federal government, along with alleged local bias, means future cases must be heard at the federal level.
Plaquemines Parish argued the claims involve environmental harm that is beyond the control of Washington — meaning that the high court’s decision could reshape where massive suits against Big Oil can be heard; as many companies also seek to ramp up production in line with President Donald Trump’s “energy dominance agenda.”
“There is thus no denying that these petitioners are being sued in state court for production activities undertaken to fulfill their federal refining contracts,” a brief filed by Chevron and ExxonMobil said, in part.
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Prominent NYU law professor Richard Epstein said Wednesday that Plaquemines Parish has pointed to massive erosion dating back to the 1920s amid increased wartime operations, while also citing hurricanes’ devastating impact on the bayou’s already fragile landscape.
Companies used the area to produce “AvGas” for wartime aircraft, and that Louisiana officials calculated the erosion in the billions of gallons, but added that comparisons made to the BP Oil Spill were different because “pollution is very different than erosion.”
“Nobody wishes to deny it, but it had nothing to do with it. So what you do is you have the Supreme Court dealing with a very technical question,” he said.
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“Local bias issue is extremely powerful, which is why you have that statute. It’s the same reason why we have diversity jurisdiction; the home court advantage is really huge and there’s no place where it’s worse than in Louisiana — so you get the bias, you get these jury verdicts, which are completely wacko as far as I can tell,” he said.
He faulted Louisiana officials for siding with plaintiff’s lawyers in the fine-related case to oppose “anything that they bring into court” on such matters, calling it an “outright mischarge of duty” that requires high court intervention.
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Epstein said he is “reasonably confident” that the court will reverse a lower court’s ruling that the parish is the proper legal jurisdiction, warning that if not “it’s a bigger scandal than I think we’ve ever seen in terms of the litigation system.”
Mike Fragoso, an attorney at former Attorney General Bill Barr’s firm Torridon Law, said that there are more than 40 cases filed that allege oil and gas companies have caused erosion through exploration activities in the Gulf; totaling billions of dollars in claims.
Those hefty figures should be a warning against so-called “hometowning” — or the dynamic in which local juries tend to side with their neighbor plaintiffs and against “outsider” companies, Fragoso said.
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“The idea is to prevent local judges and juries from hometowning federal officials as they’re doing the work of the federal government,” he said.
“And Chevron’s view is that because they were in the AvGas business, at the direction of the federal government in World War II, they belong in federal court. The state of Louisiana and the plaintiffs disagree.”
While a supporter of U.S. energy development, Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry sided with Plaquemines as attorney general when the saga began.
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Current AG Liz Murrill said in a statement that “virtually every federal court has rejected Chevron’s attempt to avoid liability for knowingly and intentionally violating state law.”
“I’ll fight Chevron in state or federal court — either way, they will not win,” she added.
John Carmouche, an attorney behind the Chevron case and other pending suits, said the appeal to the high bench doesn’t focus on the merits of the dispute itself.
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“It’s more delay, they’re going to fight till the end, and we’re going to continue to fight as well,” he told The Associated Press.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Southeast
Duffy exposes 54% of North Carolina truck licenses issued illegally to ‘dangerous drivers’
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Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy on Thursday revealed that 54% of North Carolina’s non-domiciled commercial driver’s licenses (CDLs) issued to foreign nationals reviewed by federal officials were issued illegally.
The discovery came amid the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s (FMCSA) ongoing nationwide audit of the state’s truck licensing systems.
If North Carolina does not revoke all illegally issued licenses, the Department of Transportation (DOT) will withhold nearly $50 million in federal funding.
“North Carolina’s failure to follow the rules isn’t just shameful — it’s dangerous. I’m calling on state leadership to immediately remove these dangerous drivers from our roads and clean up their system,” Duffy wrote in a statement. “President [Donald] Trump and I are committed to keeping you and your family safe on our roads.”
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy warned that widespread fraud is allowing illegal immigrants to obtain commercial driver’s licenses, which he said poses safety risks. (Department of Homeland Security)
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In a letter to North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein and state Department of Public Safety Commissioner Paul Tine, the FMCSA said the state illegally issued non-domiciled CDLs to drivers who were ineligible, those whose licenses were valid long after their lawful presence in the U.S. expired and those whose lawful status in the U.S. was not verified by North Carolina.
FMCSA Administrator Derek Barrs said the level of noncompliance in North Carolina is “egregious.”
To retain its federal funding, North Carolina will be required to immediately pause issuance of non-domiciled CDLs, identify all unexpired non-domiciled CDLs that fail to comply with FMCSA regulations and revoke and reissue all noncompliant non-domiciled CDLs if they comply with the federal requirements.
ICE arrested more than 100 foreign national truck drivers in California’s Operation Highway Sentinel after deadly crashes linked to state-issued CDLs. (Department of Homeland Security)
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The state must also conduct a comprehensive internal audit to identify all procedural and programming errors, training and quality assurance problems, insufficient policies and practices and other issues that have resulted in the issuance of non-domiciled CDLs that did not meet federal rules.
Duffy set his focus on CDL issues in early 2025 after an Indian national who held a California-issued CDL allegedly killed a car full of people on Florida’s turnpike.
ICE said Akhror Bozorov, 31, a criminal illegal immigrant from Uzbekistan, was issued a CDL from Pennsylvania. (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement)
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California has since revoked 17,000 problematic non-domiciled CDL licenses as DOT conducts a nationwide audit initiated by President Donald Trump’s executive order on truck driver roadway safety.
Fox News Digital’s Charles Creitz contributed to this report.
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