Channel 2 gets up-close look as investigators remove meth-soaked foam from tractor-trailer

Local, state and federal agents stopped a tractor-trailer they believed was potentially lined with meth in Newton County.

Only Channel 2 Investigative Reporter Mark Winne was there last week as specially suited drug-removal experts took chunks of the suspected meth from the trailer parked at the Newton County sheriff’s office. The DEA said the suspected meth was mixed into the foam lining of the ceiling.

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“In the ceiling of the truck, it’s a regular foam on the top, you remove it, now you see the methamphetamine which is a brown color,” said DEA agent Chuvalo Truesdell.

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Lindsay Williams of Homeland Security Investigations said the truck crossed from Mexico into the U.S. someplace near Laredo, Texas, and once alerted by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Homeland Security went into action. They eventually learned the DEA had a related investigation and pulled them in, then the two agencies moved into Newton County with the sheriff’s office there and Georgia State Patrol.

“This is the second trailer with this type of configuration we’ve had in the past couple of months so,” Williams said. “This is happening with some sort of regularity.”

A DEA expert said the foam likely was to be processed into meth at a secret lab in a house in a Duluth-area neighborhood that had a contraption to produce it, which would potentially have put neighbors in danger.

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“It poses a risk to everyone in the immediate area,” said DEA agent Rob Norton. “It would be like running a propane grill, operating a body shop inside a house. All of those volatile chemicals are trapped in the house.”

When asked if the dangerous chemicals could cause the house to explode, Norton said, “Yes, absolutely.”

Norton said we won’t know just how much meth could’ve been made from the lining of the truck until the foam is weighed and analyzed, but he’s confident it will be hundreds of pounds.

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Williams said agents are working to take down the network.

Local, federal agents make major bust preventing thousands of meth doses hitting metro streets The DEA agent in charge said the house agents raided Tuesday night in a joint HSI-DEA case housed a meth conversion lab.

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