FLORIDA, United States — A religious group in Florida is suing the state on behalf of a man who investigators say is the leader of a multimillion dollar Jamaican drug-smuggling cartel.

The suspected ringleader, Mark Reed — a name investigators say he was using then — was arrested in 2013 when law enforcement agents raided a warehouse and suspected stash houses in Orange County.

Agents seized cash, weapons and arrested more than 50 people at the time.

Additional reports from WFTV9 — an ABC news affiliate in Orlando, Florida — are that, while awaiting sentencing, Reed was arrested again under the name McKoy Smith after drug dogs hit on his car and deputies found US$300,000.

He was eventually prosecuted under the name Terence Turbe and is now serving a 12-year sentence after pleading no contest to drug trafficking and money-laundering charges in Orange County, New Jersey last year.

The religious group, called the Moorish Science Temple of America is suing the state, the governor and court officials on behalf of Turbe, calling him Mckoy Smith el.

The leader of the group, Grand Sheik l Love el, say the authorities have no jurisdiction over anything with the Moorish Science Temple of America, adding that the temple is a body politic and members are a protected class of people in a religious society not subject to the laws of the country or state of Florida.