Following a months-long investigation by the McDowell County Sheriff's Office, Marion Police Department, and the NC State Bureau of Investigation, they identified Greggory Lowery as a large supplier of methamphetamine in the county.
McDowell County Sheriff Ricky Buchanan said they found 110 pounds of methamphetamine in Lowery's car and another pound at his residence, along with 20 firearms.
Lowery was charged with two counts of felony trafficking methamphetamine and was issued a bond of $2,000,000.
Timothy Beaty was also charged with felony conspiracy to traffic methamphetamine and issued a bond of $500,000.
Buchanan said that on Nov. 13, law enforcement conducted surveillance on US-221 and saw Lowery driving a grey Honda Pilot, closely followed by a Ford F-150 driven by Beaty.
A traffic stop was conducted on the truck due to a traffic violation and at the same time, law enforcement attempted to stop Lowery. He pulled off to the side of Vein Mountain Road and attempted to set his car on fire and flee.
Lowery was quickly arrested and the fire was put out.
The amount of meth found in Lowery's car is equivalent to a street value of $3.8 million.
Buchanan said that the real heroes of this large bust are the members of the McDowell County Drug Enforcement. He said it is the work they put in that allows for seizures like this to happen.
"While we can weigh the drug amounts, while we can look and count the number of guns we seize, what we can't do is put a number on the number of lives that have been saved by this amount of drugs - this amount of poison being taken off our streets," Buchanan said.
Marion Police Chief Allen Lawrence said that in his 25 years of service, he has never seen a bust this big. Lawrence encouraged people to continue sending in tips because no matter how small, it could lead to something exactly like this.
He added that this is a team effort with all entities working together.
"The amount of this seizure is proof of what you can do if you do it together as one big team," Lawrence said.
NC SBI Director Chip Hawley said that he was thankful to be able to play a part in this, but at the end of the day, it is the local agencies that make the difference.
Buchanan said that while it is impossible to put a number on the amount of lives that were saved from this seizure, there is a bigger problem.
"There's a problem at our borders. The drugs are getting across our borders more and more every day," he said.
He says he is hopeful that change is coming soon to tighten up the issues at the border.
"We're hearing it from our drug informants, we're hearing it from our drug suspects, that the borders are wide open and they're trying to get as much as they can across the border right now before they start shutting down," he said.
Buchanan said that in a perfect world, they would put an end to any illegal substances coming into McDowell County, but that is not a reality.
In reality, he said, people need to know that they will be continuing to fight this fight and that anyone who chooses to transport and traffic illegal controlled substances will be arrested.
Buchanan said that people like Lowery have no regard for human life; he described it as selling poison knowing it is going to kill people.
"When trying to flee and trying to allude they don't care about the people around, they don't care about the family that's traveling up the road while they're running from law enforcement - total disregard... I've got no use for it here in McDowell County and I can tell you we're going to continue to fight it," he said.
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