The second major drug busts in the matter of days happened outside of Atlanta.
For the last five months, the Gwinnett County Police Department’s Narcotics Unit has been keeping tabs on suspected drug traffickers believed to be involved in a marijuana grow house operation.
On March 14, that investigation paid off: a raid of five grow houses netted more than $35 million in drugs, 22 guns and 16 arrests.
“The detectives assigned to the Narcotics Unit truly committed themselves to this criminal investigation,” said Maj. Cleo Atwater, commander of the Gwinnett County Police Department’s Special Investigations Section. “Because of their hard work, a significant amount of drugs will be kept out of our neighborhoods and schools.”
According to Gwinnett police spokeswoman Cpl. Michele Pihera, the investigation began in October when detectives “uncovered two large drug trafficking organizations that imbedded themselves into the community.”
Since then, detectives identified the five grow houses, each of which averaged 340 to 1,500 plants in each home, and linked the alleged traffickers “to a larger international organization serving not only Gwinnett County and the metro Atlanta area, but also the southeast United States,” Pihera said.
“To those passing by, no one would have suspected that these five marijuana grow houses were harboring criminal activity,” she said. “The drug trafficking organizations utilized sophisticated equipment to manufacture high-grade marijuana. The largest grow house was an 8,500 square-foot home in Norcross.”
