REDWOOD COUNTY - The Brown-Lyon-Lincoln-Redwood-Renville Drug Task Force continues to search for five suspects with active arrest warrants recently issued in court.
On Tuesday, 21 suspects were arrested in Redwood Falls, Redwood County and the Lower Sioux Community near Morton.
Most of the suspects face methamphetamine sale charges, according to a Task Force press release.
On Monday, the Task Force and Renville County Sheriff's Department executed two search warrants in Franklin and arrested two suspects. One was charged with second degree methamphetamine sale. The other is expected to be charged with fifth degree marijuana possession.
A second search warrant was executed in Morton and a suspect was arrested and faces a first degree methamphetamine sale charge, according to the press release.
On Friday, Dec. 2, the Task Force and local and state agents executed four search warrants.
Two search warrants executed on the Lower Sioux community resulted in four suspects charged with fifth degree methamphetamine possession and two suspects charged with second degree methamphetamine possession.
Two search warrants executed in the City of Redwood Falls netted another suspect charged with fifth degree methamphetamine possession.
The arrests are the result of a year-long narcotics investigation expected to net 37 suspects, according to the news release.
Task Force Commander Jeff Hohensee said the arrests were made without incident.
"I think we caught them sleeping. On Tuesday, we had a 6:30 a.m. brief. By 10:30 a.m., most of the arrests had been made," Hohensee said.
He added that no meth labs were found in the area.
"I think most of the meth was shipped out here from the Twin Cities metro area," Hohensee said.
Assisting the BLR Drug Task Force were the Lyon, Redwood and Renville Sheriff's departments, police from Redwood Falls, the Lower Sioux tribe, Marshall, Morgan, Franklin, Fairfax, plus the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, Minnesota State Patrol, and the Minnesota River Valley Drug Task Force.
"The Task Force couldn't have done this without all the help from other agencies," Hohensee said.
(Fritz Busch can be e-mailed at fbusch@nujournal.com).