Clarksville Officers Play Critical Role In Bringing Down Kentucky Drug Operation

CLARKSVILLE, Ind. — $3 million in cash and around 150 pounds of marijuana seized in on of Indiana’s biggest drug busts ever.

It’s the culmination of a nearly six month long investigation by Clarksville police, Louisville Metro Police and federal drug investigators. 27-year-old Matthew Sansone was arrested at the Omni Hotel in downtown Louisville last week, after police confirmed it was he in surveillance video unloading drugs from a van that had driven in from California and stored them in warehouses as the Storage Express on Highway 44 in Mt. Washington, Kentucky.

Investigators, like Capt. Joel DeMoss with Clarksville PD said once the drugs were unloaded, 20-year-old Keegan Smith was responsible for distributing the pot to dealers in the Louisville metro area, which includes Clarksville, Indiana. Smith has also been arrested.

“This is marijuana on steroids,” Capt. DeMoss said Thursday. “This is some of the most potent marijuana we’ve seen on the streets ever, and we knew it was getting into the high schools in the area. So we took it a little personal.”

DeMoss said the operation came to a halt when the courier van was pulled over in Clark County last week before Sansone was arrested. DeMoss said the driver of the van cooperated with the officers who pulled him over and told them he thought he was hauling “high-priced art.”

That led investigators to the warehouses in Kentucky where police found the $3 million in cash and the 150 pounds worth of pot which was ready to sell. The other discovered around 15,000 e-cigarettes laced with THC.

DeMoss said they’ve gotten a lot of grief on social media from people who believe recreational pot should be legalized in Indiana. But, DeMoss said in this particular case, the money made from illegally selling the pot they found goes back to a Mexican drug cartel.

“What they do with that money goes into their other illegal endeavors,” said DeMoss. “The manufacturing of methamphetamine, cocaine and heroin.”

(PHOTO: karnchana_thammalee/Thinkstock)