OMAHA, Neb. (KMTV) — The Drug Enforcement Administration Omaha Division has seen a 31 percent increase in methamphetamine seizures in 2019. The DEA has reported approximately 1,437 pounds, estimated at $9 million collected across the region during the first half of the year.
In 2018, agents from the Omaha Division's five states, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota, seized 1,639 pounds of methamphetamine.
The DEA says that methamphetamine is finding its way into the United States via the Southwest border. Seizures along the border increased 255 percent from 2012 to 2017, with the bulk of methamphetamine entering the Midwest through Arizona.
Today's methamphetamine is 71 percent cheaper than it was in 2005. Agents are seizing loads of amphetamine in double digit and occasional triple digit quantities. In 2005, the peak of domestic methamphetamine production, it was uncommon to seize multiple pound quantities of meth in one raid.
Fourteen years later, agents in the Omaha Division reported 14 seizures of 30 or more pounds of methamphetamine in the first half of 2019. In Iowa, agents seized about 119 pounds in a recent raid.
