DEA Agent: 'Obviously, We Threw Away the Celery'

2.3K pounds of meth were found in truckload of the veggie
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Aug 14, 2024 2:28 PM CDT

The Drug Enforcement Administration says it found something very unwholesome lurking in a truckload of celery at a farmers market in Georgia. The agency says it uncovered 2,380 pounds of methamphetamine Monday in the third-biggest meth bust in the US this year and the biggest in the history of the DEA's Atlanta office. "This was contained in a cover load of celery," DEA Special Agent in Charge Robert Murphy said, per Fox 5. "It was hiding in the celery. Obviously, we threw away the celery. That didn't make it to the store." He said investigators believe the shipment is pure methamphetamine, worth roughly $3.2 million at the wholesale level and much more on the streets.

Murphy said the agency received a tip about the shipment and tracked the truck after it crossed the border from Mexico. The driver, Mexican citizen Jesus Martinez Martinez, was arrested. "This is a significant and unbelievable amount of drugs to be shipped at one time and to a destination this far from the border," Murphy said in a statement to USA Today. "It also shows the confidence of the cartel behind this." The DEA says this isn't the first time the Atlanta State Farmers Market, a major produce terminal for the southeast US, has been used by drug traffickers.

"If drugs are moving through there, there is a possibility of contamination, so it's important we keep our consumers safe," Georgia Department of Agriculture Commission Tyler Harper said. He said the agency's law enforcement division, deactivated by a previous administration, was reinstated last year because of drug-trafficking concerns. (More methamphetamine stories.)

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