HUNTSVILLE, Ala. – Federal authorities said they arrested 36 members of a drug trafficking ring in North Alabama last week in a joint operation with multiple federal agencies and local law enforcement. The arrests were the result of a months-long investigation. During that time, law enforcement officials said they learned quite a bit about how these drug dealers were able to bring meth into North Alabama.
Over the course of the investigation, officials say approximately 200 pounds of meth were shipped through the mail. The mail, something as mundane as a package, turned illicit in this case.
Unfortunately, this isn’t the first time drugs have been shipped through the US Postal Service. This is something the US Postal Inspection Service has been working to stop for years.
74 pounds of meth and a 1 kilo of cocaine were seized as a part of a multi-agency investigation into a drug ring supplying meth to almost a third of the state. Law enforcement officials say they were being supplied drugs from CJNG, a Mexican cartel that is an offshoot of the Sinaloa cartel. Officials say the drugs were being sent from the San Bernardino area of California — a portion of them shipped through the US Postal Service.
Unfortunately, that 200 pounds make up only a small portion of drugs being shipped in the mail. Last year, the US Postal Inspection Service, a federal law enforcement agency tasked with keeping mail safe, seized over 96,000 pounds of mailed narcotics.