Troop Leader in Custody After Using Girls Scouts as Drug Mules
Â A Philadelphia women is under arrest after admitting to using a group of girls to help her sell and traffic drugs. The woman, Marlene Jacobs, 44, was a camp leader for a local chapter of the Girl Scouts andÂ had allegedly been filling cookie boxes with assortments of drugs, and using the girls to deliver them to her customers.Police say that Jacobs had been placingÂ cocaine and prescription pills into certain boxes of Girl Scout Cookies, then making sure that the girls delivered them to a designated address. Jacobs would mark the boxes with a sticker, and had been running her scheme for the last 4 years.âWe didnât know anything about what was in the cookie boxes,â said Michelle Hall, 11. âWe always thought it was funny that weâd drop off cookies and get big bags of money. Other troops were only getting a few dollars a box. I was getting over $100 sometimes. I just thought Ms. Jacobs was a good pre-seller.ââNone of us parents had any idea this was going on, that our children were being used as drug mules,â said Karen Driver, a mother of one of the girls Jacobsâ had used to sell drugs. âItâs disgusting that she would do such a thing. I mean heck, the cookies themselves are already like a drug. Have you tried Samoas? Oh my God.âThe entire scheme failed after one of the girls accidentally sold a box with prescription pills inside to a police officer. According to reports, the box either never received a sticker, or the sticker fell off, and it was delivered by mistake.âWe were never supposed to deliver boxes with stickers to anyone who didnât pre-order them through Ms. Jacobs,â said Hall. âShe must have forgotten and gave me the wrong box, and thatâs the one I gave to the policeman.ââFor a moment I thought maybe I won some type of prize or something, but when I realized what was in the cookie box I was blown away,â said police officer Martin Lovell. âI immediately tracked down the girl who had sold them to me, and questionedÂ where she had gotten the cookies. After a bit of conversation, it was clear the boxes were rationed to all the girls by their troop leader.âJacobsÂ is now awaiting her court date. IfÂ convicted, she could face up to 15 yearsÂ in prison.âThankfully, the fact that box contained cocaine didnât taint the cookies at all,â said Lovell. âMy Thin Mints were still delicious, as always!âÂ Â