DEA raid in Duluth neighborhood nets millions in heroin and cash

DULUTH, Ga. — Federal agents told Channel 2 Action News they took 86 pounds of very-high-purity heroin out of a Mexican drug distribution house in Duluth this week.

They arrested three men and seized millions of dollars in cash at a second location.

Channel 2's Jeff Dore talked to neighbors along Megan road in Duluth, who said they saw a swarm of cops show up with drug dogs, and they knew something big was going on.

Dore was there as agents stacked $2 million cash and $7 million in drugs onto a cart.

The DEA said Mexican production of heroin for the U.S. doubled in the last two years and doubled in the two years before that.

"We frequently refer to that as the trajectory of death, because that's what occurs in the long run," DEA Special Agent in Charge Harry Sommers said.

DEA agents were tipped off to a house in a quiet Duluth neighborhood where found a huge, concealed cache of heroin and meth, and money at another home.

"This was altogether an unprecedented seizure of heroin and money," Sommers said.

Dore went to the house where the raid happened and no one was home.

The three men agents arrested there are currently in the Gwinnett County Jail.

Neighbors said the men rented the house a few months ago.

"At first it was one guy, and later on we noticed thee was about five guys coming in and out," said neighbor Kathy Mai.

Dore said neighbors were stunned when they found out what agents had discovered inside the home.

The DEA said the house was being used as a distribution point for the La Familia drug cartel out of Guadalajara, Mexico.

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WSBTV