CHAMBLEE, Ga. — Federal agents swarmed a quiet DeKalb County neighborhood Friday morning.
Channel 2 Action News learned that agents who were tracking a drug shipment from overseas made an even more dangerous discovery.
Channel 2′s Mark Winne was on Captain Drive, where DEA agents and U.S. Postal Inspectors showed up with a search warrant for drugs -- but found evidence of another kind of danger, potential bomb-making materials.
DEA Assistant Special Agent in Charge Jae Chung said when agents found evidence of bomb-making, they had to back off and call in other agencies.
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“When our agents made entry into the house to execute the warrant, during their search, they discovered what they believed was bomb-making material,” Chung said. “So they paused and they contacted the ATF and the DeKalb County Police Department bomb squad.”
Chung said DeKalb Fire Rescue responded as well as officers from local police departments. Experts began a careful, drawn-out process to find out just what they had. Any explosive danger had to be investigated before the drug investigation could go any further.
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Agents said they found a number of different kinds of chemicals.
“Right now, they are still in the process of collecting that evidence, so that will be determined later on,” Chung said. “It’s not something that we see every day, but it does happen. We’re obviously very concerned for public safety.”
It was hard to determine at the scene who was working the drug case and who was there to investigate the possible drug angle.
“We’re trying to determine from a drug investigation standpoint whether or not this individual was a much larger distributor within the region in receiving large amounts of shipments from overseas and possibly distributing it throughout the local area as well as the southeast.”
One person was taken into custody.
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“We do have one suspect in custody, but unfortunately we can’t get into a lot of details about who he is and what he’s done,” Chung said.
The suspect was taken to the DeKalb County jail, where he is facing drug charges. It’s unclear how many charges he will face.
A hazardous materials clean-up crew will go through the home.
Winne talked to a neighbor, Ian Reagan, who said that seeing all the law enforcement vehicles this morning was unnerving.
“It’s a pretty quiet neighborhood, but thankful that we’ve got the police force in Chamblee that we do,” Reagan said.
