Flagler County’s Operation Loose Lips finds cocaine stuffed inside air fryer, vacuum cleaner

Two Palm Coast brothers are heading to prison following a year-long, multi-agency cocaine trafficking investigation led by the Flagler County Sheriff’s Office.

Sheriff Rick Staly announced details of the takedown Friday at a news conference, dubbing the operation “Operation Loose Lips.” He spoke before a display of seized Rolex watches, gold jewelry, designer shoes and eight confiscated vehicles.

Claude Harris, 38, known by the street name “Lips,” was sentenced Oct. 28 to 14.5 years in prison after pleading no contest to trafficking in cocaine and money laundering. His brother, John Harris, 36, pleaded no contest to sale or possession of cocaine and was sentenced to 3.5 years.

Search warrants executed across Palm Coast between June 5-10 turned up some creative concealment methods.

“They have some very interesting hiding places like inside a vacuum cleaner and an air fryer,” Staly said.

In total, Operation Loose Lips yielded nearly 1.5 kilograms of cocaine with an estimated street value of $150,000, along with $100,969 in cash, five firearms, eight vehicles and hundreds of designer handbags, shoes and clothing valued at over $100,000, plus dozens of pieces of jewelry. All seized assets were forfeited.

The haul was particularly striking, Staly noted, given that Claude Harris had claimed to earn just $60,000 a year as a dump truck driver.

The investigation also led to the arrest of Aleah Fagan, 31, Claude Harris’s girlfriend. Fagan, a nurse at Halifax Health in Daytona Beach, was accused of maintaining a stash house for the organization.

During a June 10 search warrant at 20 Angela Drive, detectives discovered a vial of fentanyl citrate and two vials of morphine, along with plastic bags and a digital scale coated in a white powdery substance that tested positive for cocaine.

Investigators are now working to determine whether Fagan used her position at Halifax Health to divert the medications. The Volusia Bureau of Investigation is assisting with that probe.

The investigation was led by the FCSO Special Investigations Unit and the FBI, with assistance from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Homeland Security Investigations, the St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office and the Volusia Sheriff’s Office.

Seized vehicles, jewelry and designer goods will be listed for public auction at GovDeals.com. Staly joked that the community could “own a piece of Flagler County drug history.”