Published: October 27, 2007 01:19 am      

19 arrested in drug busts

Undercover agents crisscrossed Laurel County in recent months, visiting suspected drug dealers and reportedly purchasing a variety of illegal drugs.

Tuesday morning, with cooperation from state and local law enforcement, including Kentucky State Police, Kentucky Vehicle Enforcement, Laurel County sheriff’s deputies and London police, UNITE agents returned to those homes, serving arrest warrants on 19 of 34 people targeted in the sweep.

Divided into teams of five or six officers, police spread across the county, beginning about 7:30 a.m., knocking on doors. They announced their presence and the fact officers were prepared to execute warrants.

At one home north of Hazel Green, repeated shouts by the UNITE agent, who asked not to be identified, were not answered by the home’s occupants.

A swift kick to the door sent it flying open and officers quickly entered and secured the home.

The officers searched the home, looking for evidence of drugs and took the person named in the warrant into custody. Within minutes, the officers had the suspect cuffed and in the back of a cruiser. Then they were off to the next home on the list.

By 10:30 a.m., the team had arrested four people and returned to the Laurel County Fire Department to process the suspects.

Joel Cunagin, manager of UNITE’s Cumberland Task Force, said officers recovered a two-way police radio and about 1 pound of marijuana from an East Bernstadt home.

Additional operations later that day by Laurel County sheriff’s deputies, London police and UNITE followed up on a number of complaints to the drug tip line (1-866-424-4382), leading police to locate a methamphetamine lab at a home on KY 1956.

Cunagin said the lab was not active when it was located.