Meth Busts: Too close to home

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Shelby County District Attorney Bill Gibbons and Shelby County Sheriff Mark H. Luttrell, Jr. announced July 12 that officers in the Shelby County Sheriff's Office Narcotics and Street Crimes Bureaus arrested or attempted to arrest 11 individuals who were indicted earlier this week for allegedly buying large amounts of the ingredients used to make methamphetamine. The criminal indictments are the result of a multi-agency investigation.

Officers started the round-up of defendants early Thursday morning (July 11) and continued through Thursday evening.

The state Grand Jury for Shelby County on Tuesday returned 11 criminal indictments for numerous counts of promotion of methamphetamine manufacture. Under the Meth Free Tennessee Act of 2005, retailers are required to keep written records of customers who buy products containing pseudoephedrine, the main ingredient used to make meth, found in many non-prescription cold and allergy mediations. The law states that an individual who purchases or possesses more than nine grams of pseoudoephedrine (about four boxes of the medicine, depending on the number of tablets) is in violation of a class D felony.Meth Indictments

The West Tennessee Meth Task Force, which is overseen by the TBI, assisted in the arrests and provided special scanners to check the suspects and their families for the presence of meth. The Tipton County Sheriff's Office and the Bartlett Police Department also assisted the Shelby County Sheriff's Office Narcotics and Street Crimes Bureaus by identifying suspects in this lengthy investigation that ran several months.

"This is an excellent example of what can happen when law enforcement agencies work together to address the manufacturing of methamphetamine in Shelby and surrounding counties," said Sheriff Luttrell. "The net is always out. If you purchase products with the intent to produce or traffic methamphetamine, you will be arrested," warned the sheriff.

A recent spike in the number of meth labs discovered in west Tennessee prompted law enforcement officials to open an investigation. "Last year at this time, TBI agents and other law enforcement agencies had raided 293 labs. Already this in 2008, we have seen a 16 percent rise with 341 labs having been discovered, 16 of those being in Memphis and Shelby County," stated Barry Michael, Regional Director of the Western District with the TBI's Tennessee Methamphetamine Task Force.

Three Bartlett residents were indicted in the sting operation - Leif Nelson, 33 Lewis Spears, 44, and Karrie Scanlon, 44.