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Published: Saturday, December 9, 2006

Police arrrest two in meth sting


By Diana Hefley
Herald Writer






BOTHELL - A trip to the grocery store netted drug detectives nine pounds of high-quality methamphetamine - enough drugs to send two people to prison for life, according to court documents filed Friday.

Snohomish Regional Drug Task Force detectives and federal agents arrested a man and a woman Thursday after the man allegedly sold six pounds of meth to a police informant in the parking lot of Fred Meyer on the Bothell-Everett Highway, according to a complaint filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Seattle.

"That is a significant amount of meth. This isn't somebody operating by himself. He has to have some connections to get that quantity of drugs," said Snohomish County sheriff's Lt. John Flood with the task force.

The meth likely came from a superlab. A majority of the meth now in Snohomish County is high-quality "ice" produced by international drug traffickers in Mexico and Canada, Flood said.

The man, 29, who is in the U.S. illegally, and the woman, 26, were charged by complaint with possession of meth with intent to distribute the drug. If convicted, the two face 10 years to life in prison.

The man reportedly agreed to sell the informant six pounds of meth for $63,000, according to the complaint.

Police set up surveillance Thursday and watched the man and the woman at a Bothell apartment. Investigators watched the woman drive to a nearby Safeway, where she reportedly bought several plastic containers. She returned and the man left carrying a large grocery bag.

He drove to Fred Meyer, where he put the grocery bag in the informant's vehicle, police said.

The man was arrested in the parking lot. Investigators found plastic containers full of meth inside two shoe boxes in the grocery bag.

Investigators then searched the apartment and found another two pounds of meth stashed in a bathtub and under the kitchen sink.

They also found scales, packaging material, chemical used to cut the drug, additional plastic containers and a loaded semiautomatic handgun, according to the court file.

Flood said investigators were pleased to have seized such a large amount of meth.