COVINGTON, Ga. — Sheriff’s deputies joined with state and federal agents to seize more than a ton of liquid methamphetamine embedded in the trailer of an 18-wheeler traveling through Newton County Wednesday, a spokesperson said.
Drug Enforcement Administration spokesman Andrew Park said Newton County Sheriff's Office investigators helped his agency discover about 1.2 tons of suspected meth in an inconspicuous place in the otherwise empty trailer of the big rig.
Park said about 1,100 kilos of liquid meth — about 2,400 pounds and enough for thousands and thousands of individual doses — lined the ceiling of the trailer and, apparently, the walls.
The suspected liquid meth was not in liquid form but soaked into foam in the lining of the trailer and dried, Park said.
“It's quite stunning the ingenuity of the cartels," Park said.
Three men, all Mexican citizens, were arrested during the Wednesday afternoon incident in Covington, he said.
No other details were available, Park said.
The operation to arrest the men involved numerous local, state and DEA agents, he said.
"Our folks are trained to combat these threats," Park said.
It was a Department of Homeland Security-led event aided by the DEA, GBI and sheriff's office, said spokesperson Caitlin Jett. She deferred to the DEA for comment about other parts of the operation.
Park said agents also uncovered a suspected meth conversion lab operating in a house in a Duluth neighborhood Tuesday and had discovered another in Ellenwood in recent weeks.
The tractor-trailer — en route from Mexico — may have been going to the Duluth lab or some other location, he said.
There, the meth would be extracted from the foam, cooked to remove impurities, and converted into a drug to be sold on the street, Park said.
He said Mexican drug cartels are now producing most meth in much more sophisticated ways than portrayed on TV shows like "Breaking Bad," which often showed crude American labs which formerly primarily produced the drug.
The drug now also is often being produced in labs found in "quiet residential neighborhoods" but still contain chemicals that are "just as dangerous," Park said.
