SIX CHARGED INCLUDING ONE KNOX COUNTY MAN FOR $13 MILLION OF METH (ONE TON) INTENDED FOR SUPPLY LINE FROM “MEXICO TO GEORGIA AND UP INTO EAST TN AND ELSEWHERE”
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Six people from Mexico are in federal custody in East Tennessee after a bust led to the discovery of more than 900 kilograms of methamphetamine with an estimated value of more than $13 million, authorities say.
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Doug Overbey, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Tennessee, made the announcement Thursday.
Authorities allege they’ve interrupted a methamphetamine supply line that stretched from Mexico to Georgia and up into East Tennessee and elsewhere. The amount seized is equal to a ton of meth.
The defendants are identified as Jose Cruz Landeroz-Tovar, Mariono Gonzales, Luis Albert Cruz, Aldolfo Dominguez, Luis Fernando Pena-Fierro and Maria Magana. They’re charged in a complaint with taking part in a meth distribution ring.
The six were arrested Tuesday in northern Georgia. Cruz and Dominguez have a preliminary March 19.
Among those with ties to the alleged meth ring is a Knox County man named Cody Seals, 22, who in January got into a shootout with Tennessee Highway Patrol troopers in Hamilton County while carrying meth he’d just gotten from Magana, according to records and previous reports.
Magana is a central figure in the alleged operation, records indicate. Authorities, records indicate, first became aware of her after two people who’d just bought meth from her were in a crash Dec. 12, 2019, in East Tennessee.
The exact location of the crash wasn’t immediately clear. FULL STORY HERE
